Hook, Line, and Sinker
by Mad Maruri Tigerfox
Summary: A two woman crew is what we are. We’ve done not much, but gone so far. Once we were struck, we were left to drown. But now instead... we're stuck in town...
1. Fancy Meeting You

"I can't believe our ship was shot…" I sighed.

"Those damned marines…" replied Nira, my first mate, doctor, weapons crafter, and best friend.

We were sulking along the bustling streets of the town we had "ported" in. My red and white striped shirt, baggy tan capris, and sandal like shoes were saturated with water and Nira's plain, light blue t-shirt, blue jean skirt with knit pant capris under it, and simple black shoes were as well and the both of us were looking for the huge town square where sailors, the Marines, and, amazingly, pirates could stock up on supplies.

"So…" I began as I tried to get a positive expression to cancel out Nira's negative vibe, "What all do we need to get again?"

She turned her head to me. Her expression showed absolutely no interest. All she wanted were some dry clothes and a place to stay. My milk chocolate brown eyes narrowed slightly and I growled.

"Doc, come on," I encouraged, "Cheer up. Well get some new clothes while were here, okay?"

"Hn," was her only reply.

I rolled my eyes slightly and giggled. Her green eyes met mine as I turned my gaze back to her and she glared at me mildly. I giggled yet again. We were so different yet we were the same in a few ways.

I smiled at her wide, my pearly white teeth glowing as I strongly countered her downer emotions and she sighed in defeat to my optimism, as she always did.

She said to me, "I hate you so much…" as she looked away from me.

I grinned even wider and shook my head ever so slightly. "No you don't," I replied in a sing-song voice while skipping forward slowly, "You know you love me way to much!"

"Are you sure about that, Captain?"

I gave her a fake offended expression, while setting my hand over my heart, and then pushed my bottom lip out in a puppy-dog pout. My eyes got a hurt glaze over them as I stared her.

"You dun love me?" I whined while turning away and acting like I had just been stricken, "Aw! How could you?" I brought my hands up to my face and "cried". She though, just stood there, giving me a very easily read look. I stopped my "crying" and returned the gaze from the corner of my eye.

"Are you done yet?" she asked in a very strong alto voice.

I sighed in defeat this time and let my arms fall limply to my sides. My back slumped and I looked over to her completely.

"Didn't work, eh?" I asked, already knowing the answer to it.

"No," she replied nonchalantly, "Not at all."

I let out another sigh then stood up and shrugged.

"Hn. At least I gave it a shot."

She shook her head as she usually did when I pulled that stunt, though this time it was because of the fact that I had done it in PUBLIC and we had gotten some odd looks from the passer byes, not that I had cared or even noticed for that matter, but I did notice her next reaction. As she looked past me she suddenly shuddered.

"What?" I asked not really realizing what she had exactly shuddered at, but once I had turned around my eyes widened considerably. "YES!" I screamed, "The food market!"

I grabbed her wrist and dragged Nira close behind me. I had my sights set on the vegetable portion of the market. Nothing else could get my interest at the moment.

"Captain!" she yelled in protest, "Captain! MADELINE!"

I kept dragging her behind me, but responded with a quick and simple, "What?"

"The fish market!" she replied in an agonized voice while attempting to dig the heels of her shoes into the pavement.

"We'll come back!" I told her while looking behind me slightly. Nothing was going to stop me. I wanted, no, needed some fresh vegetables.

As we approached the area I wanted to be at, I slowed down and released her forearm. She stood up, straightened out her clothes that had started to dry quite quickly thanks to the fast pace I had been moving at, and glared at me. She wasn't happy that I had passed the fish market.

"Oh get over it," I said while I too adjusted my clothing, "We'll come back. I promise."

"We better, Captain. Because if we don't-"

"I said we would, didn't I? And don't call me Captain so freely. We've got the marines here."

"And if that wasn't bad enough… Look."

I did as she had told me and my eyes widened.

There he was. The towering man with a built body, short cut, white hair, heavy jacket that was open wide exposing his bare chest underneath, and the two unmistakable, smoking cigars that were held firmly between his jaws.

We had a run in with him before, but once he heard that the widely known Strawhat crew was near, he decided to let us off, but not without doing something to impair us. He always was such a pain in the ass...

I leaned over to her and whispered, "Don't make eye contact. He might notice us if he sees us staring and being overly cautious."

She nodded in agreement and we both turned around.

Even though on this island we were safe from any kind of arrest or harassment because of the fact that this is how the economy of this particular place survived, that didn't mean that once we were ready to set sail he wouldn't come after us. Though we had to find a ship before we would even be able to think about leaving, but that wasn't something I was terribly concerned with. All I was concerned with was what kind of produce I could find to use.

"I need a bag, Doc," I told my friend, "Do you have any idea where the bags are?"

She suddenly pivoted to one side, her extremely long hair twisting around her thin, but muscled frame, and then back around to me with a canvas bag in hand.

"Ah haha! You're so good!" I praised.

She shook her head and accepted my compliment as I took the canvas bag and started off down the long isles.

I was running from one stand to the other, looking at each different piece of food closely and choosing carefully and after a few moments of inspecting the ears of corn that they had, Nira began to get a bit impatient.

"Cap–… Madeline. Hurry up," she told me with a rough intonation.

"Oh be patient, Doc. It's a virtue."

She turned away from me slightly and mumbled, "It's not a virtue I want…"

I chuckled lightly at her. She was always so impatient when I was looking for something. Especially fresh produce.

I picked up a few ears of corn and put them in the canvas bag and then ran off to another vegetable. Spinach. Fresh spinach. There was nothing else like it in my opinion. Nira followed reluctantly behind, but not close enough as to disturb me.

"You're like a small child in a candy store, Madeline," she stated softly.

I smiled as I turned around to return to her a smile and then as I twirled back around a few of my bangs from my bright red hair fell in front of my face once I had stepped forward and went back to my original path. I skipped over to the spinach crate quickly, reached out my hand, and grabbed not only a bushel of spinach, but ended up clutching someone's hand in the process. I stared at the peach colored hand for a few moments, my eyes widened, and I felt my face heat up. I then looked up at the human who the hand belonged to just as quickly.

His maroon, black pin striped shirt was neatly tucked into his black slacks and the, of course, black tie around his neck made his formal, gentleman outfit look all the more attractive on his slim male form.

"OH MY! I am so sorry!" I apologized as I quickly retracted my hand, "You go ahead and have that. I don't really need it anyway." That was a total lie. I really wanted it and needed it, but it was the polite thing to do and not to mention he got there first.

But then I heard a small gasp come from this young blonde man who caused me to look straight back at him and I was quite surprised at how quickly he had approached me. He had swooned up to me, the greens in hand and insisted with a mist of love and chivalry surrounding him that I take them instead.

"No. You go ahead and have it," I told him as I slightly pushed his hand back towards him along with moving myself a few steps back from him. My comfort zone had just been invaded and, well, like all people I suspect would have done the same.

He shook his head rapidly in a no motion, his blonde hair swishing about as he did, except the large portion of his bangs didn't seem to move from their spot in front of his left eye. How peculiar…

"Oh no, no, no," he said back taking just another small step towards me, "Ladies always come first."

As he finished his statement he quickly closed the rest of the distance between us, grabbed the edges of the canvas bag and gently set the spinach in. I looked at the bag with a confused expression and then back at him keeping the same look, but his made me lose mine altogether. He still had that mist of love around him as he grinned with a large heart pretty much pulsing in his visible eye. It was incredibly cute in my opinion.

'Need a subject!' I yelled at myself inwardly. Making conversation always made me feel less awkward.

"So… Why are you here?" I smacked myself mentally as the last syllable came out of my mouth. I hated it when I had to frantically look for a conversation starter and especially when the one I came up with was so cheesy… though he laughed.

"I'm a cook for a pirate crew," he said quite easily while adjusting his tie to make him seem more dignified to where he would be more attractive. I didn't think that was possible, but it must have been.

My eyes sparkled and I jumped slightly. The whole thought that he was a cook made me even more fascinated with him.

"Really? Me too! What's your n-"

Then the sound of someone clearing their throat reached my ears.

"Who is this?" came an alto voice from behind me and only I knew who it was as they set their hand on my shoulder.

I spun myself around and waved my hands frantically in front of me.

"I was just talking! I swear!"

"Mmhm," she said to me then looked at the blonde young man and her green eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"

"I'm Sanji," he replied with a voice of uncertainty.

I could tell that he thought she was a guy instead of a girl. A very feminine looking male, but a male none the less. A lot of people made that mistake, but he wasn't stupid enough to ask about it. Thank god. But then I heard him gasp again and his visible eye widened slightly. He rushed up to her and held one of her hands firmly in his own.

"Oh! I am so sorry!" he apologized, "I did not mean to offend such a lovely lady."

I laughed slightly at this sight. Nira was glaring very lightly, knowing exactly what he meant by "offending" her. Since she had a very strong alto voice, it tended to give people the idea that she was a guy and not a girl.

She pulled her hand out of his grip and turned away. Her blue-green hair flowed behind her.

"If you're going to be goofing around, I'm going over and getting supplies of my own," she said in an extremely impatient tone.

I laughed even more as she walked away. Sanji was somewhat confused as to what was her problem and somewhat hurt so I turned back to him with a hope that I could remedy him of that problem.

"Don't take it too personally. She's always like that," I reassured.

He looked back to me unsure, but took my word. I smiled seeing that he was going to trust my word and slipped my hand in his, gripping it firmly in a more traditional greeting and once he tightened his hold back I smiled and shook his hand.

"Nice meeting you Sanji," I told him politely. I could tell he was a bit thrown off at first at the fact that I knew his name though he hadn't told me, but he figured out how I was able to get it and once I nodded and we released each other from our holds I advanced past him.

I was about five feet away when I heard the soles of his shoes scratch across the pavement in the manner of turning.

"Wait."

I did as he told and went back to facing him.

"Yes?"

"You haven't introduced yourself," he stated with a sweet, but stern tone, "That's not too polite you know."

I laughed. Very, very gentleman like, he was and it made him all the more of an interesting character to me. Never had I met anyone as forward, yet respectful of women as he, but of course, if he acted like this towards me, I couldn't have been the only one he did it to. That was a "NO DUH!" kind of thing which of course, made my heart sink slightly.

"True," I said back, agreeing completely, "The name's Madeline." I spun back around to my natural direction and started, yet again, trucking down the busy isles of the market. "Hope to see you 'round Sanji!"

And the further and further I got from him the more my mind wandered to my best friend and her condition.

'I hope she finds something for it…' I thought to myself.

...

I still had a bored expression plastered on my face as I went searching through the stands in the medical market.

"Hnn…" I groaned as I walked over to the nearest one and pointed to a certain brand of medication, "What symptoms does that cure?" The clerk answered me, but didn't give me the answers I wanted. I sighed heavily. "Thanks…" I told him as I began to turn away.

'I guess…' I thought to myself.

I headed over to another one near by and pointed at another brand of medication.

"I'll take that one."

"Yes ma'am," was the reply I got.

Suddenly, I felt an excruciating pain in my throat and reacted as quickly as I could to it. I jerked a handkerchief out of my pocket and covered my mouth as I coughed violently, attempting to rid myself of the crap that was congesting my lungs and airways.

"Shit…" I cursed as I looked at the blood that was starting to stain the white cloth, "That's been getting worse…"

Then a small voice reached my ears.

"Um… Are you alright?" it asked with a caring tone, "That sounded like a really bad cough."

I looked at the small, furry creature standing in front of me and it seemed extremely concerned. It advanced towards me slowly and my thoughts raced. What in the world…

"A talking…"

Then I felt the pain again in my throat and coughed. I pulled one of my arms up to clutch my stomach and used the other to cover my mouth as I hacked whatever was coming up into it. The pain was horrible.

"OH MY!" screamed the little creature as it rushed over to my aide, "Are you alright?"

I didn't reply. All I did was move my hand away from my mouth and I saw blood running down my arm and slipping through my fingers. I growled quietly as my body slowly began to give out.

"Damn…"

...

Chopper sighed as Nira's body hit the ground and lay there limply.

"Oh man…" he said looking her over quickly to access just how bad she was and how much time he had to get to the ship to help her, "I'm going to need to get to the ship… and quick…"

He suddenly became huge and his body became extremely built. He picked her up and held her to him as he ran off quickly, large bounding steps echoing off the buildings around and then Zoro began to turn the corner.

"What the… Chopper? What the hell is he- Wait…"

He squinted his eyes slightly and took notice of the young girl he was carrying in his muscle toned arms.

"Why is he carrying that girl?" he asked as if he was expecting someone to answer, " Or better yet, where is he taking that girl?"

He stepped up his pace and did what he could to keep up with him, but not tip Chopper off that he was following, and following out of curiosity.

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!_**

_Well... This is the re-done first chapter. I hope that it is interesting to you all 'cause I think that it is WAY more interesting than it was before, but anyways. PLEASE review! I would really appreciate it!_

_-Love Maruri_

**_IMPORTANT NOTE: Earliest chapters are being edited to be better and more interesting, just as this one has been done._**


	2. Are You Really

I had been waiting in front of the stand of pointless junk for about ten minutes patiently waiting for Nira to return with her supplies. I was swaying back and forth on the heels of my sandals while letting my eyes roll around in their sockets. It took all I had to hide my feelings of worry. When she didn't show up within five minutes of my arrival like usual, I tended to get paranoid.

'What if something happened to her?' I asked myself, my frantic thoughts throwing random scenarios out.

A mental image of her walking in the market, suddenly falling, and then being taken by some weirdo, or worse… the Navy had come up to the screen of my inner theater and every muscle tensed.

My stomach began to churn violently at the thought and my brown eyes darted around rapidly looking for any sign of her at all. As my worrying increased, so did my rocking speed. The frantic thoughts that were beginning to plague my mind grew and became worse and worse with every passing moment.

"I need to find her!" I screamed as I stopped swaying and jumped onto the balls of my feet.

Snapping my head in every direction possible and logical, I stepped cautiously out into the middle of the very busy intersection. I needed to find someone to help me find my friend, but I wasn't quite sure who would be nice enough to lend me a hand... And then, as miraculously as anything else, he started to come right into my line of vision.

'Oh! He has to be willing to assist me!' I told myself so I could bring my mind to do it

I dashed over to him since he wasn't really that far away and I latched my hands around his collar bones and locked gazes with him. He seemed as though he had just finished his grocery shopping and his visible eye showed confusion and surprise while mine showed worry and a begging shine.

A nice breeze of salty sea air brushed into the both of us and he made no movements what so ever or at least not as first.

"Sanji!" I whined, unknowingly bringing him closer to me, "I really need your help!"

His eye widened showing that he reacted to my plea and his face showed much concern for whatever predicament I was in and also loads of glee at the fact that I had pulled him that close to me.

"Oh Madeline~!" he sung in a sweet, caring voice, "What could be troubling such a wonderful, young woman?"

My arms were shaking a bit at the fact that I was so uptight because of the bad thoughts, but I did my best at calming my racing thoughts and cells. Gulping hard, I locked gazes with him, expressing my horrible situation.

"I can't find Nira!" I cried with an extremely upset tone, "Please! You have to help me!"

His eye widened even more, heaping more shovel full amounts of concern onto the already current number, but he became very relaxed suddenly as his gaze went down to the concrete path below. I was completely confused… Was he not going to help me? Or was he deciding whether to help me or not?

"Follow me, Madeline," he said, bringing his head back up quickly and grabbing the wrist of my right arm.

My eyebrow cocked upwards in curiosity as he started to gently pull me behind him. Only two thoughts were in my head right now at this point. Where was he taking me and how long was it going to be until I found my _other half_…

...

I opened my eyes slowly as I began to wake up and my pupils groaned in pain to the bright light as they dilated to adjust to the sunlight that was billowing in from the small window. As I did my best to sit up, I looked around. My eyes fluttered in confusion as I realized that I wasn't in the market place anymore.

I was in a small office looking room. The walls were made of a pretty light wood with a thin bookshelf standing tall beside a rectangular, ornate table and a stool to match. On the table there were flasks, test tubes, graduated cylinders, other things of that nature, much like the ones I _had_ back on mine and Madeline's ship before it was sunk, that were filled with a multitude of colored liquids, some sitting flat on the surface and a few others propped up on holders with a small flame going on under them causing the substance inside to bubble and boil.

"Where am I…?" I asked and I realized that that there was someone in the room with me and was seated on the decorative stool I had just swiftly looked past when a reply had reached me.

"Oh good!" said the small, human-like reindeer as he spun around on the circular piece of wood to look at me, "You're awake!"

My eye twitched at the sight of this reindeer thing actually being real. At this point, I really wished it wasn't. When I was in the market and saw this… creature, I had thought I was hallucinating. I didn't believe it was a serious thing, but my wanting it not to be real came to a stop when I saw that it was staring at me just as I was at it.

"What?" I asked roughly, my green eyes narrowing.

He jumped at my rough as sand paper voice, but replied, "Sorry. You passed out in the market and I…" He was hesitating with his words. Being an animal, I figured he could feel that I was not comfortable here in the least bit. "Well… I thought that I should help you…" Then he straightened out and up and put a smile on his face, "And it seems, that the medicine I gave you worked very well."

My eyes widened in surprise. This thing was not only real, but it was a doctor.

"You… helped… me?" I asked slowly but continued clearly dumbfounded at the fact that he really did assist me and he smiled along with a nod, but his tall, pink top hat slipped and he reacted frantically to fix the problem.

I looked down to the sheet that covered my lap and my brain automatically went to wondering about my friend and just as it came right to the front of my mind, I spoke in a very soft voice. So soft that my "caretaker" couldn't hear, "I wonder what happened to Captain…"

"Um… Excuse me…"

My head then snapped to him to him quickly, not liking the fact that he interrupted me in my thinking process. I had no idea where Madeline was and that was a problem. A BIG problem. Who knows what method of searching for me she had gone for…

"What?" I growled low, but shook my head after seeing him jump at the sudden change in attitude. I shouldn't be acting like this… "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to react like that." Going back to the demeanor I was in earlier I replied in a nicer tone or at least started to. "Wh–"

"Where is she?" screamed a very loud, upset, and not to mention familiar voice as it cut me off, "Is she here? Please tell me if she is!"

I looked to the door and sighed, knowing exactly who it was. The small creature before me widened its eyes and immediately faced the door. Seems the quieter voice, which was obviously shaky, replied to her and said that the one she was looking for might have been in here. Guess that was a big mistake…

"Oh no!" it screamed in a shrill tone while becoming incredibly huge in the blink of an eye, "No one can come in here!"

The expression I possessed stayed the same though I followed this astounding being's movements and watched him hold someone back.

...

"You can't go in there!" exclaimed this giant, brown reindeer like thing as it locked its arms in place, trying and doing a very good job at keeping me away from the room behind it, "I'm sorry, but it might make my patient worse!"

I wriggled in his grasp with all that I had, but it didn't help me much in accomplishing my goal.

"Nooo!" I wailed in protest wanting to get to my friend who was supposedly in that room, "I need to know she's okay! Please!"

"No! You can't go in there! I ask of you, please listen to me!"

"Madeline. Stop."

I froze suddenly and peered over the massive bicep of the thing holding me back and a smile went on to my face. Sanji was right! She had been brought here! I was going to need to thank him for his help.

"Nira!" I said in an extremely happy voice while placing my hands on the forearm of the reindeer and pushing myself up slightly to look at her better, "You're okay!"

She nodded and replied, "Yes I am. Thanks to…?" She turned to the reindeer creature and he released me while turning to her.

"Chopper," he said, his apparently natural head voice not fitting the muscle built look he head, "And you shouldn't be standing up. You need to go and lay-"

"What I _need_ to know is this: Where are we?" she asked sternly, clearly portraying that she was not going back and laying down. She never did like to seem helpless.

He took a step back, as to give her some space and as to not get himself hurt if he actually planned to push her even further.

"You're on a… well… a pirate ship."

"Okay…" was her only statement as she looked over to me. I gave her an expression that seemed to say "Oooo! Pirates!" and she just shook her head, but kept that expressionless that she seemed to keep most of the time. "Who's ship?" she asked.

"The Strawhat crew's," stated a deep voice, "Who are you two and why are you here?"

I saw Nira begin to turn to the person who the voice originated from and her reaction was priceless.

Once she laid eyes on the green haired young man she did a double take and her mouth hung open, but she recovered immediately returning to the state she was before. My eyes widened at his words, but I took a short note of how Nira reacted. That would be fun to poke, well, fun at her with later on.

I rushed over to the man and gently grabbed him by his shoulders.

"You all are the Strawhats?" I asked, my intonation rising slightly, "Are you messing with me?"

"Madeline…" said Nira's stern voice from behind me, but I continued on, "Madeline…" Yet I still continued. "CAPTAIN! ENOUGH!" Her usual, or usual as of late, violent coughing reach my ears and my attention went directly to her.

"Oh my!" I yelped while letting go of the person before me's shoulders and rushing to her aid, "Doc? Are you alright?"

She gave me a look that said "What the hell do you think?" but she wasn't going to allow the spectators around to know. "I'll be fine," she said as she stood up.

"There's another captain on this ship?" asked a voice that sounded oddly familiar to me, though I couldn't quite place where I had heard it…

The person who it belonged to didn't waste anytime getting himself to the doorframe and expressing his curiosity for the new discovery. His hair was shoulder length, black and puffy with goggles latched around the top of his head and his nose was quite long. Unfortunately, he was violently shoved out of the way to expose another member of this crew. The one that I had come to know, thanks to all of the wanted posters that were everywhere, as the captain of this odd group and he did, indeed, wear that straw hat that I so frequently saw him wearing.

"Who's the other captain?" screamed the newest person.

I started to step back slightly, getting ready to retreat from him. Hearing someone pretty much call for me like that seemed to threaten me, but luckily my best friend was there to react and she stood in front of me very protectively.

"Who are you?" she asked with a very defensive tone.

The boy stood in a very proud stance as he put his hands on his hips and smiled wide. "Monkey D. Luffy. The captain of this crew," he said quickly and with much enthusiasm, "And who are you?" He leaned in towards her, his eyes questioning her very innocently. "Are you the other captain?"

The bright shine in his eyes was very noticeable by the way a smile was creeping up on his face, but she shook her head slightly in reply to it.

"No. I am the doctor," she stated, but then started to cough. I reacted from behind her, but she moved her hand, signaling me that she was fine and could take care of it. "May I have a chair please?" she asked her savior, her voice giving out on a syllable every once in a while. Chopper nodded, set one that was close in front of her, and she accepted it gratefully while taking a seat. "Thank you," she told him with a small smile and then her expression went back to that unemotional face.

Luffy's face sunk at Nira's words immediately, though. It was quite evident that the answer he had gotten was not the one he was looking for. His face was very amusing which caused a petit grin and giggle to come from me.

"Then who's the other captain?" he asked to no one particular in a disappointed tone.

I was pretty happy that no one had said anything yet and I hoped that no one would, but my forehead broke out into a cold sweat as I watched the green haired man bring his arm up, motion over to me, and say "She is." My eyes widened considerably and I tried my best to make myself less noticeable to everyone there. Pushing myself back into the shadows that the wall behind me created, but it was futile. The young captain took a gigantic lunge towards me, easily past my impaired friend and right in front of me.

"Are you really?" he asked in a disbelieving, yet interested tone.

I heard Nira growl at him from low within her chest menacingly, warning him that if he did much of anything else, something was bound to happen and that's exactly what came about. His straw hat suddenly flew straight off of his head and everyone had turned their attention to the long haired lady sitting in the chair with a death ray playing from her eyes.

'Oh man, Nira… She threw a tea cup…' I thought to myself as I rolled my brown eyes and looked at the shattered glass ware. How incredibly violent she could be.

"Whoa…" trailed off Luffy as he picked his hat back up and placed it on his head. He stared at her for a few seconds in awe at the fact that she was able to hit the hat and not his head, but I doubt he knew that it was a warning since his eyes and every bit off attention went back to me just a moment later and he began to step towards me with the utmost curiosity. "So are you?" he asked again.

I laughed hesitantly and replied with a shaky, "No," and I kept retreating. My laughs increased and became more and more, trying to find a way out of this very uncomfortable situation.

'I've got to make a run for it… Even if I don't make it…'

I looked over to the door frame from which I had entered through earlier and nodded to myself.

Throwing my body towards the chair Nira was seated in, my right leg pushed upwards and I slipped the ball of my left foot on to the back edge of Nira's seat. Every muscle in my foot launched me up and over Nira's head while she sat there calmly, watching my plan unfold. And just as my entire foot slammed onto the wooden floor, I smiled wide.

'I can make it!' I screamed inwardly, my confidence sky-rocketing, but I was sadly fooled.

Something gripped my bare, left calf out of nowhere, held it firmly in its hold, and everything around me shot upwards rapidly, leaving my vision to focus on the deck boards I was now laying on. My face had collided with the hard, cold, and unforgiving ground below.

"Ow… So not cool…" I moaned.

...

My insides twisted as I watched my captain fall to the deck. I shot up out of my chair and stood in front of Luffy with my eyes flaring with anger.

"Leave. Her. Alone," I hissed, "Tough pirate or not, you will NOT treat her like that." I pushed past the childish captain and hurriedly helped Madeline to her feet. "You didn't break your nose again did you?" I whispered.

She turned and glared at me mildly. I knew exactly why.

"No," she stated quietly with a somewhat sour tone, "Is he anywhere near here?"

I shook my head in reply.

"No. But still."

She straightened herself up and darted her eyes around slightly.

"Who tripped me?" she asked with a hushed voice.

I shrugged and looked around slightly also, but it seemed that no one had budged from their spots.

"I don't know," I told her as I turned back around to her, "It seems that no one's moved at all."

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, her red and white striped shirt wrinkling under her forearms slightly.

"That was so not cool!" she yelled.

I winced.

"Thank you, Captain for taking out my left ear drum…"

She laughed slightly and apologized and I forgave as I always did. I let her go, which was a mistake on my part and began to walk over to my chair, but nearly fell to the floor. Madeline attempted to come to my aide, but I motioned for her not to as I caught myself and landed on my hands and knees. The pain that I had been feeling earlier returned to my neck and blood forced its way up. I coughed, trying to rid myself of it and wiped the excess off.

"Damn…" I whispered, "Not again…"

"Oh my," came Chopper's high pitched voice, "Come on. You need your rest and you need it now."

My eyes shut slightly as he picked me up and began to walk back into the room.

I looked to Madeline and she was staring at me with the utmost concern. I opened my eyes a bit more and saw the green haired young man start advancing towards her.

"Swordsman," I mouthed.

...

Nira mouthed 'swordsman' to me and I automatically spun around.

"Ah!" I screamed, jumping a few inches up in the air. The young man stared at me with his brow cock slightly, but returned to his normal expression. "How may I help you?" I choked out with a few hesitant laughs.

"You need to know this," he said in a slightly rough tone.

"Zoro!" yelled Sanji's familiar voice, "Tell her politely. She does not need to be treated like a prisoner! Neither of them do!"

The man, or Zoro, looked at the very gentleman like blonde with a glare.

"Shut up Sanji!" Then his attention went back to me when I laughed. I stopped immediately. "From here on out, you are a captive."

My eyes widened.

"WHAT? CAPTIVE?" I exclaimed, "But… But… But why?"

"Well," he began, "It's only you because your friend in there is Chopper's patient, but you are another pirate captain. Secondly…"

As his voice trailed, I sunk inwardly, afraid of what I had really done to deserve being a captive…

"_You tried to run._"


	3. The Request

"Really? Then I'll get on it right away!" exclaimed an extremely happy voice who practically had a heart in his visible eye and began walking back into the kitchen, but immediately stopped as something had dawned on him. He turned back around, "Wait… What about Madeline? Is she hungry?"

"I don't know," Luffy replied to him.

Suddenly Sanji's eye changed from "love" struck to a flare of quick frustration.

"LUFFY!" he screamed in an extremely angry voice, "THAT'S JUST RUDE!"

Zoro's right eye opened slightly.

'Good lord…' he thought with as much frustration that was in Sanji's voice.

He shook his head and knocked on Madeline's door with his knuckles.

"Oi, prisoner. You hungry?" he asked her.

He waited for a few seconds before he felt her react for the first time in quite a while. A tapping reached his ears and his sense of touch. The tapping came twice. He paused.

"Is that a no?"

Nothing came that time.

He waited a few seconds, but his impatience got the better of him. He stood up out of his previous relaxed sitting position and glared at the door slightly.

"You have five seconds to answer or I'm coming in there," he stated in a quite voice, knowing that if Sanji heard, he would lose his mind. "And I'm serious," he added.

He heard her yelp slightly at his threat.

"Five," he began.

Nothing.

"Four… Three…"

Still nothing. His eye twitched in annoyance.

"Two. One. I'm coming in."

He grabbed the handle and began to twist it, but he suddenly felt it being gripped and held in place from the inside.

"No!" she screamed out, "I'm hungry!"

"Finally. An answer," he stated as he sighed and let go of the handle.

He turned from it.

"Oi, Sanji! The prisoner is hungry!"

Sanji stumbled as he walked to the kitchen door way. It was as if he had been struck suddenly.

"Must you call the lovely captain a prisoner?" he whined.

Zoro's eye twitched yet again. He sat back down by Madeline's door.

"Stupid Love-Cook…" he mumbled to himself… or so he thought it was to himself.

Sanji then spun around on his heel, slamming it on to the deck. His eye flared up again in anger.

"I HEARD THAT YOU CRAP-SWORDSMAN!" he screamed.

A small giggle emitted from the door as Zoro shot up from his sitting position again.

"SHUT UP NEEDLE BROW!"

Then the "small" giggle began to get louder and much easier to hear and soon becoming a full blown laugh. Zoro looked to the door with an irritated expression.

"AND WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?"

"You two!" exclaimed Madeline's voice as she got control of her laughter.

Zoro slammed his fist onto the door and her laughter picked up again.

"Be quiet!" he yelled.

Her voice then became muffled. He let out a heavy sigh of frustration as he heard Nira laugh from her room. He looked at her then turned, but made a double take just as quickly. Her left arm and right leg had been wrapped up in gauze. He stopped and stared. Her pupils narrowed.

"Take a picture. It'll last longer," she stated coldly.

He glared at her slightly, but decided not to stress her.

"What happened to you?" he asked trying to be as polite as he could.

Her green irises glinted with suspicion.

"Why should I tell you?" she asked roughly, "You don't take requests so I don't have to answer you."

Zoro growled at her reply. He could tell she wasn't too happy with him as she glared back, but her eyes darted over to Madeline's door.

"Madeline, be quiet. I can hear you in there."

She stopped and a few moments passed before the faint sound of knocking on wood came from her door. Zoro wanted to ignore it, but Nira continued to stare. Her gaze actually becoming too much, he gave in and sighed as he turned to the door.

…

I heard him turn on his heel and lean in towards the door. I smiled.

'Alright! I actually got his attention!' I thought happily, 'Now. Ask him, Madeline. You're able to ask questions now…'

I opened my mouth and when I began to speak my voice became small, like a child's.

"Can I please come out?" I begged, "I won't run. I promise."

I heard him growl and I went into a slight defensive position. I guess it had become a habit. I heard the bottom of his shoes scratch across the deck outside my door.

"Oi, Luffy," he said.

My eyes sparkled slightly.

"She promises not to run. She wants out."

I heard a laugh. A loud laugh,

"The let her out!" exclaimed Luffy in a big voice.

I could tell that he must have been grinning wide by the sound of his voice. I also heard Zoro mumble a few curse words that I couldn't quite make out. Then I heard the click of the door's lock and it started to open slowly. I smiled, but my head fell to the floor quickly in guilt as the wooden door stopped.

"You can come out now," he told me.

I did exactly that. I walked out with my head hung and I knew I had to say it as he stepped back a little.

"I owe you an apology…" I told him in a voice full of shame.

"Me?" he asked in a surprised tone.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye and saw him eye me cautiously, but soon he went into a cold state.

"I don't want it," he stated.

I complied.

"I understand."

He turned from me and walked off. I sighed and looked around and I spotted the long nosed young man I had thrown out of the way earlier. I smiled slightly.

"I need to apologize to him too," I told myself in a low whisper.

I took in a deep breath of the salty sea air around me and called upon the loud and demanding captain voice I knew I had.

"You!" I said in a booming voice while pointing at him.

He spun around and started to smile, but that smile quickly disappeared as he saw it was me calling upon him. That made my heart sink, but I kept walking towards him. I took a quick note of his frightened expression and trembling arms.

"M-Me?" he stuttered.

His entire body shook slightly as I stopped in front of him. My demeanor changed suddenly from very confident and demanding to guilty and shameful.

"I owe you an apology too…" I said quietly.

He was clearly thrown off, seeing as though he lost his balance and fell back slightly with a surprised expression which was very amusing in my opinion.

"What?"

"Yeah…" I continued, "I shouldn't have thrown you out of the way like that…"

…

"It's just… we've had some rotten luck and all…" she finished and began to trail off.

"It's alright," he said back to her reassuringly.

She looked up in surprise as to hear him forgive her that quickly only to see him standing up straight confidently.

"I was once thrown across an island by a twenty foot giant and didn't suffer a scratch."

Madeline's eyes sparkled at this.

"I'm The Great Captain Usopp, you know."

She blinked in awe and showed interest in what he was telling her.

"Really?" she asked.

"Sure!" he exclaimed, apparently happy about her sudden interest in him and his "tall" tale, "In fact! I also have eighty million men waiting on my command back home."

"Oh my… Would you mind elaborating on that?" she asked as she sat on the deck, "Please, go on."

"SURE!" he yelled with utter enthusiasm.

He began to tell this tale of a time when he was washed upon the rocky shore of a distant island where giants were inhabited, and he had to do battle with each one with his bare hands and his sling shot, which had never failed him once. He had defeated everyone single handedly.

"And then, the few that were left took me to there leader and BOY! Was he HUGE!" he emphasized while throwing his arms up to show, "Over fifty feet tall!"

As he stood in that pose he looked over to the once intimidating captain and watched her slightly. She laid there on her stomach swinging her legs back and forth with an extremely bright glaze of interest painted over her chocolate brown eyes. He smiled slightly as this site.

"Anyway, he challenged me to a duel, which I bravely accepted of course, and won with barely a scratch on me!"

Madeline smiled wide and so did he as he brought out his sling shot.

"And all I had with me was my trusty sling shot," he told her as he struck a triumphant pose, "Because I'm the Great Captain Usopp!"

"Whoa…" she trailed, "No way."

"It's true!"

"You're kidding me."

"Nope!" he said as he grinned wide.

…

I watched as he smiled, but he was soon called away. My heart sank again. It seemed he was happy that someone was paying attention to him and his stories.

"You know," came my strong alto voiced friend, "he's lying right?"

"Yeah," I replied as I rolled over onto my stomach to look at her.

"Thought so."

"But," I started quickly, defending him, "it was very entertaining to listen."

"Yeah and he probably has a lot more where that one came from," she added while nodding in agreement.

I smiled wide, but it faded as the sound of a gurgling stomach reached my ears. I looked to Nira, but she kept a slightly serious face as she pulled her right arm up to her abdomen. It growled again, but much louder this time and her face became slightly flushed. I chuckled inwardly at her embarrassed reaction.

And as if on que…

"COME AND GET IT LADIES!" screamed a loud, male, sing song voice.

I smiled wide yet again and jumped to my feet.

"LET'S GO!" I screamed enthusiastically as I pushed myself forward into a mild run and Nira followed close behind after giving an agreeing shrug.

As I approached the door frame that leaded into the kitchen, I skidded to a stop and easily slid into a seat and of course, Nira was right there with me.

"Claim this one!" she exclaimed as she plopped herself down into a near by chair with a smile on her face.

I smiled happily, seeing her that way, but it seemed that the "Great Captain" Usopp had to protest.

"Ummm…" he began in a hesitant voice, "That's Zoro's seat…"

Her face then became serious and her green eyes snapped to him.

"Oh well," she replied coldly.

"That's right!" I yelled, supporting her.

She started to smile, but it faded as she leaned for ward and started coughing. She quickly reached for a cloth and covered her mouth and as she quit her coughing spasm and pulled the cloth away both her, Chopper, and I noticed there wasn't as much blood there as there had been in earlier fits.

…

"You're getting better!" screamed Chopper in a happy voice.

"Hn," she muttered, "I'm surprised."

Madeline looked around the kitchen in awe. It was much better than hers in many ways. Her brown eyes sparkled as she swiftly scanned over all of the cooking utensils that were situated on the counter very decoratively.

"Whoa…" she trailed, "Totally sweet kitchen."

The blonde cook looked up from the cutting board, but kept chopping, and grinned extremely wide, apparently very pleased at the fact that she complimented his kitchen.

"Why thank you, Captain Madeline," he replied in his "love" struck voice, "I'm extremely grateful to be graced by your presence in my kitchen."

She smiled at him in a thankful way as she watched him, but then a broad shadow loomed over the table from behind her teal haired friend. Madeline looked back over her shoulder and saw Zoro standing behind Nira with a dark expression playing over his features.

"You're in my seat," he stated with a harsh tone.

Madeline yelped quietly and pushed herself, along with her chair, away from him and his incredibly harsh, negative vibes, but Nira just sat there with absolutely no reaction to him.

"So?" she retorted in a just as harsh, "as a matter of fact" tone, "Take someone else's."

Zoro's eyebrow twitched in irritation and a vein became noticeable on his forehead.

"Zoro!" yelled Sanji's angry voice.

The sound of a steel blade slamming into a thick slab of wood echoed through the room.

"These two are our guests!" he stated in a loud tone, "Be polite and pick another seat."

"Shut up shitty Love-Cook!" the green haired swordsman yelled in reply.

"How about you follow your own advice, shitty-swordsman!"

Madeline started to giggle in amusement at the two of them arguing, but quickly covered her mouth to prevent her innocent chuckle from becoming a full blown laugh. Nira though, groaned as she fell forward and placed her forehead on the table.

"Make me Ero-Cook!"

Sanji prepared himself to reply, but Nira quickly interjected her self before he could and her eyes went to Zoro and held the utmost seriousness in that gaze.

"Enough please," she said as she stood up out of her chair.

Zoro stepped back slightly, apparently shocked that she had stood up so suddenly, but only slightly and took the opening as an opportunity and slid into the seat.

"May I ask what we are eating?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Well…" began Sanji as he easily slid portions of the food onto two porcelain plates. His voice had a hint of disappointment, but it was in himself. "It was short notice and I wasn't able to prepare a very elaborate meal but… I hope this will suffice."

His voice had disappointment in it; his step however had a happy spring to it as he walked out from behind the counter with one plate in each hand. He almost resembled a waiter as he skillfully moved over to Madeline and Nira. Almost. He had much more class in Madeline's opinion.

Nira nodded gratefully to him as she took the plate from him.

"Thank you," she told him and then turned around.

As she headed to the door, she reached out and "stole" the glass of water and silverware from in front of Zoro and he took immediate notice to it.

"What the?" he screamed, "She stole my stuff."

"Get another set then," she said to him as the door shut.

Madeline laughed slightly and cut a small bit of the meat off inserted it into her mouth, but as she swallowed her face showed sadness.

"Oh my god!" screamed Nira from outside.

Sanji jumped slightly and quickly opened the door.

"Do you like it?" he asked, wanting some feed back.

She looked up at him with a blank expression.

"Well?" he pushed.

"It's good!" she told him with a somewhat full mouth.

"I'm pleased that you like it," he replied with a wide smile.

She looked down at the now clean plate.

"Thank you for the wonderful meal," she thanked.

"You're very welcome."

"More please?" she asked holding her plate up to him.

"Of course!" he confirmed and took the plate from her, "I'll get it right away."

She smiled to him and took a sip of her, or Zoro's, water as he walked back in.

He headed over to the counter again to retrieve Nira some seconds and as he did Madeline sighed heavily as she set her silverware on her plate and pushed it away from her. Then the door opened yet again and Nira walked in with her eating utensils and an empty glass in hand. Her eyes went to her captain. She opened her mouth to say something, but Madeline spoke before she could.

"I can't do it…" Madeline stated out of nowhere.

"What do you mean Cap- Madeline?" Nira asked.

The red haired girl stood up and trudged to the door.

"I need some fresh air…" she replied as the door shut behind her.

Nira sighed slightly and turned her attention to Sanji.

"I'm going to be outside."

"Alright!" he said in reply.

"Stupid Ero-Cook…" muttered Zoro.

…

I walked out of the kitchen and moved my green irises over to my red haired captain. I knew she had a lot on her mind, but I also knew a way to help with it.

"Hey, that Sanji in there," I started, "What do you notice about him?"

I saw her very small movements stop as she stared off in thought for a few moments. I mentally laughed. She probably had to find the right thing to reply with.

"He's girl-crazy," she said.

"Yeah, but there is one thing I notice about him the most."

Her brown eyes moved from the blank horizon before us to the corners of her sockets as she leaned on the railing with her chin in her palm.

"What's that?"

"I noticed that-"

I was suddenly cut off by yelling. I paused, but shrugged it off.

"Anyways, I noticed that he… noodles," I finished while wiggling my finger in a worm like motion.

She smiled and laughed at my statement.

"Yeah. I noticed that too."

I chuckled as two terms entered my mind.

"Linguini Garcon," I said quietly.

She laughed a bit more, but stopped shortly after. That usually meant she was thinking about something. I smiled anyway, but my features returned to being straight faced as Sanji came out of the kitchen again with a plate of food in hand and a smile on his face.

"Here you are," he said as he extended his arm to me.

"Thank you," I replied, not being able to hold back a smile.

I started eating when Sanji took notice of Madeline.

"Are you feeling alright, Captain Madeline?" he asked her, "You barely touched your dinner."

I laughed inwardly again upon hearing him call her "Captain Madeline". When it came down to it, he was incredibly respectful and sweet on her.

"She's fine," I answered for her as I swallowed my last bite, "We've just been through a lot."

He nodded while taking the plate from me.

"Well, if you need anything. Anything at all, please come get _me_," he told us sweetly while emphasizing the word 'me' as he smiled then returned to the kitchen.

I waited until the door shut completely and then I sighed heavily.

"We can't stay."

Madeline smiled slightly at her friend's extremely true statement.

"I know… But we can't leave either…"

Nira sat on the railing beside her friend.

"Yeah…" she agreed sadly.

"Not yet… We don't even have a ship."

"That's true…"

An agonizing pause came between them.

"Do you think she'll be here tomorrow?" Nira asked, trying to make conversation.

"Probably…" replied Madeline.

Another pause surfaced.

"How long do you think we'll be docked for, Captain?" asked Nira again as she stared off into the sunset.

"I don't know, Doc… but we'll have to go searching for a ship soon," she said as she turned and looked up into the starry side of the night sky.

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ONE PIECE!_**

**_Please review everyone! I would really apperciate it! And so would my co-author!_**

**_-Love Maruri_**


	4. Not Yet

"Really? Then I'll get on it right away!" exclaimed an extremely happy voice who practically had a heart in his visible eye and began walking back into the kitchen, but immediately stopped as something had dawned on him. He turned back around, "Wait… What about Madeline? Is she hungry?"

"I don't know," Luffy replied to him.

Suddenly Sanji's eye changed from "love" struck to a flare of quick frustration.

"LUFFY!" he screamed in an extremely angry voice, "THAT'S JUST RUDE!"

Zoro's right eye opened slightly.

'Good lord…' he thought with as much frustration that was in Sanji's voice.

He shook his head and knocked on Madeline's door with his knuckles.

"Oi, prisoner. You hungry?" he asked her.

He waited for a few seconds before he felt her react for the first time in quite a while. A tapping reached his ears and his sense of touch. The tapping came twice. He paused.

"Is that a no?"

Nothing came that time.

He waited a few seconds, but his impatience got the better of him. He stood up out of his previous relaxed sitting position and glared at the door slightly.

"You have five seconds to answer or I'm coming in there," he stated in a quite voice, knowing that if Sanji heard, he would lose his mind. "And I'm serious," he added.

He heard her yelp slightly at his threat.

"Five," he began.

Nothing.

"Four… Three…"

Still nothing. His eye twitched in annoyance.

"Two. One. I'm coming in."

He grabbed the handle and began to twist it, but he suddenly felt it being gripped and held in place from the inside.

"No!" she screamed out, "I'm hungry!"

"Finally. An answer," he stated as he sighed and let go of the handle.

He turned from it.

"Oi, Sanji! The prisoner is hungry!"

Sanji stumbled as he walked to the kitchen door way. It was as if he had been struck suddenly.

"Must you call the lovely captain a prisoner?" he whined.

Zoro's eye twitched yet again. He sat back down by Madeline's door.

"Stupid Love-Cook…" he mumbled to himself… or so he thought it was to himself.

Sanji then spun around on his heel, slamming it on to the deck. His eye flared up again in anger.

"I HEARD THAT YOU CRAP-SWORDSMAN!" he screamed.

A small giggle emitted from the door as Zoro shot up from his sitting position again.

"SHUT UP NEEDLE BROW!"

Then the "small" giggle began to get louder and much easier to hear and soon becoming a full blown laugh. Zoro looked to the door with an irritated expression.

"AND WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?"

"You two!" exclaimed Madeline's voice as she got control of her laughter.

Zoro slammed his fist onto the door and her laughter picked up again.

"Be quiet!" he yelled.

Her voice then became muffled. He let out a heavy sigh of frustration as he heard Nira laugh from her room. He looked at her then turned, but made a double take just as quickly. Her left arm and right leg had been wrapped up in gauze. He stopped and stared. Her pupils narrowed.

"Take a picture. It'll last longer," she stated coldly.

He glared at her slightly, but decided not to stress her.

"What happened to you?" he asked trying to be as polite as he could.

Her green irises glinted with suspicion.

"Why should I tell you?" she asked roughly, "You don't take requests so I don't have to answer you."

Zoro growled at her reply. He could tell she wasn't too happy with him as she glared back, but her eyes darted over to Madeline's door.

"Madeline, be quiet. I can hear you in there."

She stopped and a few moments passed before the faint sound of knocking on wood came from her door. Zoro wanted to ignore it, but Nira continued to stare. Her gaze actually becoming too much, he gave in and sighed as he turned to the door.

…

I heard him turn on his heel and lean in towards the door. I smiled.

'Alright! I actually got his attention!' I thought happily, 'Now. Ask him, Madeline. You're able to ask questions now…'

I opened my mouth and when I began to speak my voice became small, like a child's.

"Can I please come out?" I begged, "I won't run. I promise."

I heard him growl and I went into a slight defensive position. I guess it had become a habit. I heard the bottom of his shoes scratch across the deck outside my door.

"Oi, Luffy," he said.

My eyes sparkled slightly.

"She promises not to run. She wants out."

I heard a laugh. A loud laugh,

"The let her out!" exclaimed Luffy in a big voice.

I could tell that he must have been grinning wide by the sound of his voice. I also heard Zoro mumble a few curse words that I couldn't quite make out. Then I heard the click of the door's lock and it started to open slowly. I smiled, but my head fell to the floor quickly in guilt as the wooden door stopped.

"You can come out now," he told me.

I did exactly that. I walked out with my head hung and I knew I had to say it as he stepped back a little.

"I owe you an apology…" I told him in a voice full of shame.

"Me?" he asked in a surprised tone.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye and saw him eye me cautiously, but soon he went into a cold state.

"I don't want it," he stated.

I complied.

"I understand."

He turned from me and walked off. I sighed and looked around and I spotted the long nosed young man I had thrown out of the way earlier. I smiled slightly.

"I need to apologize to him too," I told myself in a low whisper.

I took in a deep breath of the salty sea air around me and called upon the loud and demanding captain voice I knew I had.

"You!" I said in a booming voice while pointing at him.

He spun around and started to smile, but that smile quickly disappeared as he saw it was me calling upon him. That made my heart sink, but I kept walking towards him. I took a quick note of his frightened expression and trembling arms.

"M-Me?" he stuttered.

His entire body shook slightly as I stopped in front of him. My demeanor changed suddenly from very confident and demanding to guilty and shameful.

"I owe you an apology too…" I said quietly.

He was clearly thrown off, seeing as though he lost his balance and fell back slightly with a surprised expression which was very amusing in my opinion.

"What?"

"Yeah…" I continued, "I shouldn't have thrown you out of the way like that…"

…

"It's just… we've had some rotten luck and all…" she finished and began to trail off.

"It's alright," he said back to her reassuringly.

She looked up in surprise as to hear him forgive her that quickly only to see him standing up straight confidently.

"I was once thrown across an island by a twenty foot giant and didn't suffer a scratch."

Madeline's eyes sparkled at this.

"I'm The Great Captain Usopp, you know."

She blinked in awe and showed interest in what he was telling her.

"Really?" she asked.

"Sure!" he exclaimed, apparently happy about her sudden interest in him and his "tall" tale, "In fact! I also have eighty million men waiting on my command back home."

"Oh my… Would you mind elaborating on that?" she asked as she sat on the deck, "Please, go on."

"SURE!" he yelled with utter enthusiasm.

He began to tell this tale of a time when he was washed upon the rocky shore of a distant island where giants were inhabited, and he had to do battle with each one with his bare hands and his sling shot, which had never failed him once. He had defeated everyone single handedly.

"And then, the few that were left took me to there leader and BOY! Was he HUGE!" he emphasized while throwing his arms up to show, "Over fifty feet tall!"

As he stood in that pose he looked over to the once intimidating captain and watched her slightly. She laid there on her stomach swinging her legs back and forth with an extremely bright glaze of interest painted over her chocolate brown eyes. He smiled slightly as this site.

"Anyway, he challenged me to a duel, which I bravely accepted of course, and won with barely a scratch on me!"

Madeline smiled wide and so did he as he brought out his sling shot.

"And all I had with me was my trusty sling shot," he told her as he struck a triumphant pose, "Because I'm the Great Captain Usopp!"

"Whoa…" she trailed, "No way."

"It's true!"

"You're kidding me."

"Nope!" he said as he grinned wide.

…

I watched as he smiled, but he was soon called away. My heart sank again. It seemed he was happy that someone was paying attention to him and his stories.

"You know," came my strong alto voiced friend, "he's lying right?"

"Yeah," I replied as I rolled over onto my stomach to look at her.

"Thought so."

"But," I started quickly, defending him, "it was very entertaining to listen."

"Yeah and he probably has a lot more where that one came from," she added while nodding in agreement.

I smiled wide, but it faded as the sound of a gurgling stomach reached my ears. I looked to Nira, but she kept a slightly serious face as she pulled her right arm up to her abdomen. It growled again, but much louder this time and her face became slightly flushed. I chuckled inwardly at her embarrassed reaction.

And as if on que…

"COME AND GET IT LADIES!" screamed a loud, male, sing song voice.

I smiled wide yet again and jumped to my feet.

"LET'S GO!" I screamed enthusiastically as I pushed myself forward into a mild run and Nira followed close behind after giving an agreeing shrug.

As I approached the door frame that leaded into the kitchen, I skidded to a stop and easily slid into a seat and of course, Nira was right there with me.

"Claim this one!" she exclaimed as she plopped herself down into a near by chair with a smile on her face.

I smiled happily, seeing her that way, but it seemed that the "Great Captain" Usopp had to protest.

"Ummm…" he began in a hesitant voice, "That's Zoro's seat…"

Her face then became serious and her green eyes snapped to him.

"Oh well," she replied coldly.

"That's right!" I yelled, supporting her.

She started to smile, but it faded as she leaned for ward and started coughing. She quickly reached for a cloth and covered her mouth and as she quit her coughing spasm and pulled the cloth away both her, Chopper, and I noticed there wasn't as much blood there as there had been in earlier fits.

…

"You're getting better!" screamed Chopper in a happy voice.

"Hn," she muttered, "I'm surprised."

Madeline looked around the kitchen in awe. It was much better than hers in many ways. Her brown eyes sparkled as she swiftly scanned over all of the cooking utensils that were situated on the counter very decoratively.

"Whoa…" she trailed, "Totally sweet kitchen."

The blonde cook looked up from the cutting board, but kept chopping, and grinned extremely wide, apparently very pleased at the fact that she complimented his kitchen.

"Why thank you, Captain Madeline," he replied in his "love" struck voice, "I'm extremely grateful to be graced by your presence in my kitchen."

She smiled at him in a thankful way as she watched him, but then a broad shadow loomed over the table from behind her teal haired friend. Madeline looked back over her shoulder and saw Zoro standing behind Nira with a dark expression playing over his features.

"You're in my seat," he stated with a harsh tone.

Madeline yelped quietly and pushed herself, along with her chair, away from him and his incredibly harsh, negative vibes, but Nira just sat there with absolutely no reaction to him.

"So?" she retorted in a just as harsh, "as a matter of fact" tone, "Take someone else's."

Zoro's eyebrow twitched in irritation and a vein became noticeable on his forehead.

"Zoro!" yelled Sanji's angry voice.

The sound of a steel blade slamming into a thick slab of wood echoed through the room.

"These two are our guests!" he stated in a loud tone, "Be polite and pick another seat."

"Shut up shitty Love-Cook!" the green haired swordsman yelled in reply.

"How about you follow your own advice, shitty-swordsman!"

Madeline started to giggle in amusement at the two of them arguing, but quickly covered her mouth to prevent her innocent chuckle from becoming a full blown laugh. Nira though, groaned as she fell forward and placed her forehead on the table.

"Make me Ero-Cook!"

Sanji prepared himself to reply, but Nira quickly interjected her self before he could and her eyes went to Zoro and held the utmost seriousness in that gaze.

"Enough please," she said as she stood up out of her chair.

Zoro stepped back slightly, apparently shocked that she had stood up so suddenly, but only slightly and took the opening as an opportunity and slid into the seat.

"May I ask what we are eating?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Well…" began Sanji as he easily slid portions of the food onto two porcelain plates. His voice had a hint of disappointment, but it was in himself. "It was short notice and I wasn't able to prepare a very elaborate meal but… I hope this will suffice."

His voice had disappointment in it; his step however had a happy spring to it as he walked out from behind the counter with one plate in each hand. He almost resembled a waiter as he skillfully moved over to Madeline and Nira. Almost. He had much more class in Madeline's opinion.

Nira nodded gratefully to him as she took the plate from him.

"Thank you," she told him and then turned around.

As she headed to the door, she reached out and "stole" the glass of water and silverware from in front of Zoro and he took immediate notice to it.

"What the?" he screamed, "She stole my stuff."

"Get another set then," she said to him as the door shut.

Madeline laughed slightly and cut a small bit of the meat off inserted it into her mouth, but as she swallowed her face showed sadness.

"Oh my god!" screamed Nira from outside.

Sanji jumped slightly and quickly opened the door.

"Do you like it?" he asked, wanting some feed back.

She looked up at him with a blank expression.

"Well?" he pushed.

"It's good!" she told him with a somewhat full mouth.

"I'm pleased that you like it," he replied with a wide smile.

She looked down at the now clean plate.

"Thank you for the wonderful meal," she thanked.

"You're very welcome."

"More please?" she asked holding her plate up to him.

"Of course!" he confirmed and took the plate from her, "I'll get it right away."

She smiled to him and took a sip of her, or Zoro's, water as he walked back in.

He headed over to the counter again to retrieve Nira some seconds and as he did Madeline sighed heavily as she set her silverware on her plate and pushed it away from her. Then the door opened yet again and Nira walked in with her eating utensils and an empty glass in hand. Her eyes went to her captain. She opened her mouth to say something, but Madeline spoke before she could.

"I can't do it…" Madeline stated out of nowhere.

"What do you mean Cap- Madeline?" Nira asked.

The red haired girl stood up and trudged to the door.

"I need some fresh air…" she replied as the door shut behind her.

Nira sighed slightly and turned her attention to Sanji.

"I'm going to be outside."

"Alright!" he said in reply.

"Stupid Ero-Cook…" muttered Zoro.

…

I walked out of the kitchen and moved my green irises over to my red haired captain. I knew she had a lot on her mind, but I also knew a way to help with it.

"Hey, that Sanji in there," I started, "What do you notice about him?"

I saw her very small movements stop as she stared off in thought for a few moments. I mentally laughed. She probably had to find the right thing to reply with.

"He's girl-crazy," she said.

"Yeah, but there is one thing I notice about him the most."

Her brown eyes moved from the blank horizon before us to the corners of her sockets as she leaned on the railing with her chin in her palm.

"What's that?"

"I noticed that-"

I was suddenly cut off by yelling. I paused, but shrugged it off.

"Anyways, I noticed that he… noodles," I finished while wiggling my finger in a worm like motion.

She smiled and laughed at my statement.

"Yeah. I noticed that too."

I chuckled as two terms entered my mind.

"Linguini Garcon," I said quietly.

She laughed a bit more, but stopped shortly after. That usually meant she was thinking about something. I smiled anyway, but my features returned to being straight faced as Sanji came out of the kitchen again with a plate of food in hand and a smile on his face.

"Here you are," he said as he extended his arm to me.

"Thank you," I replied, not being able to hold back a smile.

I started eating when Sanji took notice of Madeline.

"Are you feeling alright, Captain Madeline?" he asked her, "You barely touched your dinner."

I laughed inwardly again upon hearing him call her "Captain Madeline". When it came down to it, he was incredibly respectful and sweet on her.

"She's fine," I answered for her as I swallowed my last bite, "We've just been through a lot."

He nodded while taking the plate from me.

"Well, if you need anything. Anything at all, please come get _me_," he told us sweetly while emphasizing the word 'me' as he smiled then returned to the kitchen.

I waited until the door shut completely and then I sighed heavily.

"We can't stay."

Madeline smiled slightly at her friend's extremely true statement.

"I know… But we can't leave either…"

Nira sat on the railing beside her friend.

"Yeah…" she agreed sadly.

"Not yet… We don't even have a ship."

"That's true…"

An agonizing pause came between them.

"Do you think she'll be here tomorrow?" Nira asked, trying to make conversation.

"Probably…" replied Madeline.

Another pause surfaced.

"How long do you think we'll be docked for, Captain?" asked Nira again as she stared off into the sunset.

"I don't know, Doc… but we'll have to go searching for a ship soon," she said as she turned and looked up into the starry side of the night sky.

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ONE PIECE!_**

**_Please review everyone! I would really apperciate it! And so would my co-author!_**

**_-Love Maruri_**


	5. You Know You Do

"Well I'm going to bed…" mumbled Nira as she slowly trudged to her room.

"I'm coming with you!" I added as I trotted up to her quickly.

She grunted in reply and pushed open her door. I followed in quickly as she crawled into her bed and pulled the sheet over her head. I laughed lightly at her and decided to let her sleep, but I had to pick on her just for a bit.

"Sleep well, Doc," I said as I started walking, "Oh and Doc."

I heard the sheets ruffle and wrinkle as she looked out from underneath them.

"What?"

"Earlier. I saw the way you looked at that swordsman," I stated, pointing accusingly at her.

"What do you mean?" she asked as she sat up, her eyes darting around, but not daring to make eye contact with her red haired friend.

"Oh don't you say 'What do you mean' Miss Gawks-a-lot. I saw you staring at him!"

…

"I wasn't staring at him!" she stated quickly.

"Yes you were!" Madeline argued.

"No!"

"Your mouth even hung open!" the red head added.

"No it didn't!" Nira protested as her face turned bright red. Suddenly she stood up and took an almost identical accusing stance as Madeline. "Oh yeah? What about you when you were talking to the cook, huh? I saw you blush!"

Madeline stepped back slightly hearing Nira bring that up.

"Well yeah I did!" she replied, "I reached for a vegetable and he happened to get to it first! It was embarrassing!"

"Sure…" stated Nira in a disbelieving tone.

"It's true!" argued her captain.

Suddenly Zoro exited out of the men's quarters curious about what all the arguing was for. His eyes slowly scanned the deck in front of him and as it seemed, no one else was present except for Sanji who was doing the exact same as Zoro only he was looking from the kitchen.

Zoro's eyes then quickly snapped to the room that Nira occupied and then they went to Madeline's. His eye twitched slightly as he saw that Madeline's door was wide open. He let out a rough sigh as he slowly made his way to Nira's room, but he stopped as he heard a loud statement.

"I'll believe that when that swordsman and cook can get along!" screamed Nira.

"What are you saying?" Madeline yelled back.

Zoro's head turned to Sanji who was standing just a little ways out from under the door frame of the kitchen. He nudged his head up in a diagonal direction, signaling Sanji to come over to him. The blonde nodded back and quickly and quietly joined his green haired ship mate.

"Listen to this," he told him.

Sanji leaned in close to the door and moved some of his hair away from his ear.

"That you like that cook!" Nira exclaimed.

Madeline stopped as her friend finished her accusation. Her cheeks brightened and she went to reply, but Nira wasn't going to give her the chance.

"You like the cook and you know it!"

Sanji stopped as that statement entered his ear and light blush painted over his cheeks. Zoro chuckled at Sanji's reaction, but soon went right back to listening.

"Well you like that swordsman…" muttered Madeline in response.

"Madeline!" Nira yelled, "We've already been through this!"

Zoro leaned in even closer to the wooden door and Sanji subtly placed his hand over his mouth and a quiet, muffled laugh came from him as the two girls continued to argue and the swordsman couldn't help but laugh along.

Then the sound of someone hitting the ground cut the two of them off. They both looked at each other with a curious expression.

"Should we go separate the two of them?" asked the swirly browed boy.

"Sure," agreed Zoro in a slight bored tone, "I'll go first."

"Be my guest."

He gripped the door and threw it open. The two them were quite surprised at the foreign crew members. Nira had Madeline on the ground and pinned. Both men entered the room calmly, one right behind the other.

"What in the world is going on in here?" Zoro asked in a manner that completely masked the true fact of he knew.

Nira's face brightened and she quickly released her captain from her hold. Sanji just stood there looking to Madeline for an explanation. She gulped slightly after she jumped to her feet. Her hands automatically clasped together behind her back as she swayed from side to side on the heels of her feet.

"Well… um… about that…" she stalled, trying to find something to say and as if they were both on the same brain wave frequency, Nira and Madeline stood confidently attempting to counter the strong masculine vibe the two of them gave off.

"You overheard us!" they both yelled.

"Yes we did," replied Sanji.

"It wasn't all that hard to," added Zoro.

The two girls slumped forward. Madeline stood up somewhat straight and opened her mouth to reply, but she never got the chance to say it for Luffy pushed past the two men and stood in front of her with a big, goofy grin.

"Well! Since you two like my crew members," he exclaimed, "you HAVE to stay!"

Madeline's jaw dropped as a few stray strands of her red hair fell into her face. He was completely oblivious to the true fact in this argument.

"Oh no…" she trailed.

Zoro's eyes widened and his head snapped to his extremely positive captain. Nira took in a deep breath.

"Oh god…" she spoke quietly.

Suddenly their bright orange haired navigator, Nami, came through, lightly shoving people out of her way.

"What is going on here?" she asked as she approached Madeline.

"Luffy has officially invited our guests to stay with us," stated Sanji with a wide smile.

Her head turned to him with a look of confusion.

'Really?"

He beamed a wider grin to her.

"Yep."

Nira stepped forward with intent to kill, but she stopped suddenly. Her eyes traveled around the crew slowly.

"Where'd the swordsman go?" she asked.

"No where," came a deep voice from behind her.

She straightened her posture as her eyes widened. Madeline chuckled quietly at her friend's reaction. Nira took in a slow breath and forced her shoulders to relax.

"I'm going to bed," she pushed out, "Good night."

And with that she swiftly moved her way back to her room.

"Night Doc!" screamed Madeline.

Nira raised her hand in acknowledgement and shut her door. Chopper followed close behind. Everyone around decided that they should probably head off to bed as well, but Madeline wanted to stay up to make sure that Nira was all right.

A few minutes later the little reindeer came out with a reassuring news.

"Her wounds are fine and she should be fully healed soon," he told her.

"That's good to hear," she replied.

"Well… I'm also going to head to bed. If you need me at all please come get me."

Madeline smiled and nodded as Chopper entered the men's quarters.

...

I sighed. I was debating whether to go to bed right here and now, or to get up and go to bed in my bed, but the sound of ropes contracting and stretching reached my ears.

'I thought everyone had gone to bed,' I told myself.

My head moved upwards and I saw a very lean woman crawling down from the crows nest. My eye brow cocked upwards.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The dark haired woman jumped the rest of the way down and turned to me.

"My name is Robin," she told me, "You must be the other Captain."

"Yes ma'am, I am," I confirmed.

She smiled at me.

"How about you come with me," she suggested as she walked towards the kitchen.

"O… kay…" I complied as stood up with a struggle.

I followed close behind this mysterious woman. She gave off the same vibe as Luffy and Chopper.

"Cook-san went to bed for the night," she told me as she opened the door and entered.

I trailed in quietly and looked around. The kitchen was dark, but suddenly a lantern at one of the back walls lit the room slowly. My eyes widened in interest and slight fear.

"Woah… How'd you do that?" I asked in awe.

"I'll show you tomorrow," she replied with a smile, "But now…" She pulled two mugs out of a cabinet and filled them up with already heated water. "Do you like sugar with your tea?"

"Yes please!" I exclaimed with a wide grin.

She smiled back at me yet again and inserted the tea bags and the strong scent of peppermint floated around the room. My muscles relaxed the instant I breathed in the minty smell. She dumped two spoonfuls of sugar into both of the glasses and stirred them quickly. Robin removed the tea bags and walked over to the table and took a seat on the opposite side. She handed a glass to me and I smiled.

"Thank you," said Madeline as she gripped the cup and took a sip, not caring that it was still hot.

Robin smiled slightly.

"You're welcome," she replied.

Madeline smiled back as she moved the curved edge from her lips, but that smile disappeared quickly and was replaced by a slightly worried expression. One of the red head captain's hands went up to her head and the other was quick to follow, after she had set her glass down first of course, and her chocolate brown irises brightened in surprise.

"Where's my hat?" she yelped.

A hand appeared out of the table in front of her, holding the brown barrette like hat that she loved and cherished so incredibly.

"This?" Robin asked motioning to the hat.

"Yes!" Madeline exclaimed with relief as she took it from the hand, "Thank yoo- HOLD UP!"

Madeline scooted back slightly from it and her eyes quickly went to Robin.

"Are you alright?" the black haired woman asked innocently.

Madeline looked back at the table and the arm was no where to be seen. Her shoulders slumped over as she slipped slightly in her chair and brought her index and middle fingers up to her temples, massaging them lightly.

"My mind must be playing tricks on me…" she muttered.

Robin chuckled inwardly as the red head returned her hat to its rightful place.

"Who knows," she told her as she stood up out of her chair, "Well I am done with my tea. I bid you a good night."

"Good night to you too," Madeline replied as she waved slightly.

"It was nice meeting you Madeline," she said as she walked out.

Madeline looked down at her tea and stared at it, watching the rings form and disappear on the top. Then something dawned on her.

"Wait a minute… How'd she know my name?"

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T NOT OWN ONE PIECE!_**

**_Please review! I would really appreciate it!_**

**_-Love Maruri_**


	6. Let's Go Into Town

"IEEE! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

Madeline sat up in her bed with a dead face.

"Again with that?" she mumbled as she reluctantly left her bed.

As she opened the door she saw Usopp running about in fear. Madeline's eye brow went up as she watched him run in circles as a big shadow loomed above. Madeline looked to the sky to see what he was so frantic about and her eyes brightened.

"Yuuri!" she exclaimed as everyone else came out to see what was the commotion.

The huge bird landed and stared at the captain.

"You found us!" Madeline said, pointing out the obvious.

The red bird nodded and walked over to her. Madeline smiled happily as she patted Yuuri's head. Nira walked over to them and smiled as Yuuri looked to her and then ascended to her shoulder.

"Yes, it's nice to see you too," Nira told her.

Zoro came out of the men's quarters finally and took notice that Usopp had fainted.

"What is-WHAT THE HELL?!" he screamed as he pointed at Yuuri.

Yuuri's attention went to him and she frowned.

"It's not nice to yell and point," Nira told him.

"YOU HAVE NO ROOM TO TALK!" Zoro yelled in reply.

"I don't know what he's talking about," she said as Yuuri looked at her, "Do you Madeline?"

"Nope," said her captain with a wide smile.

"GAH!" he exclaimed, "You two are hopeless!"

Suddenly a black heel collided with the back of the green haired one's cranium. He spun around with an angry expression and met Sanji's angry gaze.

"What was that for Shitty Love Cook?!"

"Be nice, shitty marimo!" Sanji screamed back as a vein appeared on his forehead.

Zoro held his head as he glared.

"God…" mumbled the blonde as he walked past him.

"HOW ABOUT YOU MAKE ME?!" Zoro provoked.

"I don't have time to put up with you," Sanji said.

"What was that?!" he yelled.

Sanji twirled around quickly as his eye flashed with anger.

"DID I STUTTER?!"

Zoro grabbed one of his blades and pulled it out. He stood in an aggressive stance as he positioned his sword upwards. Sanji followed and stood in a defensive form with a kick ready to be let loose.

"SHITTY COOK!" Zoro shouted

"SHITTY SWORDSMAN!" Sanji replied.

The green haired swordsman growled at the blonde and rushed forward with his sword poised to slice through the cook. Sanji leaned back on one of his heels, holding the other leg up slightly, just waiting for Zoro to get close enough to launch a powerful round house into his assaulter's chest. Nira and Madeline looked to the quarrel and Madeline shook her head.

"Well that's not good," said Nira as she watched.

Then out of nowhere Yuuri swooped down and swiftly knocked Zoro off balance.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" he screamed at her.

Madeline and Nira laughed at his reaction.

Sanjireturned to his relaxed position and moved his cigarette from his mouth. As he turned on the heel of his shoe, he let out a light could of smoke and returned to his original path while giving a grin to the two female spectators.

"Damn bird…" Zoro muttered as he started to stand back up.

"Oi," said Nira who appeared behind him, "That's not nice.

She kicked him lightly and entered the kitchen behind Sanji. Yuuri went to follow her, but Madeline spoke up.

"YUURI!" she called, "You are a bird. You cannot go in there."

Yuuri stopped and turned to her. Her head hung slightly as she returned back over to the captain.

"But I'm not just any bird," Yuuri stated as she landed.

"I know. I know," Madeline said, "You're a special bird. A very special bird, but a bird not the less. But we love you all the same."

Yuuri smiled as Madeline patted her head again, but the two of them took notice of the all too cliché feeling of being watched and once they turned to the crew they had proved that they were correct.

"COOL!" exclaimed Luffy as he bounded up to them, "Did you teach it to talk?"

Yuuri's neck twitched.

"It? IT?!" she screamed, "I'LL SHOW YOU AN I-"

"Yuuri!" commanded Madeline, "No violence this early."

Her head hung for a few seconds, but perked back up slightly.

"Later then?" she asked.

Madeline's eyes narrowed into a gaze that said "What do you think?"

"Yes?" she answered in a questioning tone with two innocent gold eyes.

"Don't be a smartass," the captain replied.

Yuuri smiled at her then tilted her head up to the air.

"I smell food," she said as she looked back at Madeline.

"SANJI!" Luffy screamed taking that as her saying that she was hungry, "WE WANT FOOD!"

"YOU CAN WAIT!" replied Sanji from inside the kitchen.

"Not can," added Nira as she walked out of the kitchen door frame, "You have to wait."

Luffy sighed in defeat, but smiled wide just the same and strode up to the brilliant red haired girl. He took back his wide smile and stared at her intently.

"You three HAVE to join my crew!" he exclaimed suddenly, his wide grin returning and he went to saying reasons as to why.

Madeline's palm collided with her forehead in a loud smack.

"Did you already forget that I'm a captain myself, Luffy?" she asked.

"Oh yeah…" he trailed as he stopped his ranting, "Well… Stop being a captain and join my crew!"

He started up again and Madeline sighed heavily. Nira walked out of the kitchen, curious as to what was causing the ruckus.

"What's going on out here?" she asked as she peaked out of the door frame.

"He just told me to stop being a captain," told Madeline as she looked at her friend.

"And why's that?" asked Nira as she laughed lightly.

"He wants us to join his crew."

Nira's eyes widened and her hand suddenly released the knife she was holding. The hollow echo of the blade sticking into the deck just a few inches away from her foot drifted through the salty air.

"W-What?" she question with a surprised face as she looked to the male, hat wearing captain.

"Yep," replied her real captain as she adjusted her hat on her head.

"Because I consider you my nakama!" Luffy exclaimed as he faced the two of them.

Both Nira and Madeline froze in their spots and their heads turned to him slowly.

"Say what?" they asked in union.

"Yeah! I like you two. And your bird is cool!"

Nira sighed heavily and shook her head, but her attention moved to the knife beside her. Sanji's hand gripped on to the knife's handle and jerked it out of the deck.

"Is there anything else I can do?" she asked him as he stood up.

"Nah, but thank you very much though," he told her as he flipped the blade around in his hand, "I'm almost done anyways."

"Okay," she said.

Sanji smiled at her and returned to the kitchen. Nira looked back and scanned the deck. Luffy was ranting and Madeline was trying to explain to him that she liked being a captain herself, but he just kept going with a bright expression. Nami was talking with Robin, although Nira had no clue who she was. Usopp was stringing words together in a fantastic tale that Chopper was completely engulfed in, and Zoro was taking a "small" nap. Nira's gaze turned to the dark haired woman who was not familiar to her.

"And who are you?" she asked, doing what she could not to sound rude.

"I'm Robin," the lady replied as she finished her statement to Nami, "You must be Nira."

"I am," she confirmed along with a nod.

'There's something strange about her too…' she thought, making sure not to give any evidence that she was suspecting something.

Then Nira smiled and turned to Madeline.

"Yo Madeline," she interrupted, "How about we go into town?"

Madeline stopped her attempts to tell Luffy that she wasn't going to give up her captain position and looked to her friend. A smile appeared on her face.

"Cha! That sounds like fun!" her captain exclaimed.

"You can't leave!" interjected Zoro suddenly as he stood up.

Madeline halted her happiness and looked to him. She opened her mouth to reply to him, but another thought popped into her mind and snatched her attention.

"Hey Robin!" she beckoned while she shuffle speed walked over to her, "What about what you said last night? You said you would show me how you turned on that lamp."

"I did, didn't I?" she reminded with a smile.

"Robin," began Nami in a questioning voice, "What did you do?"

"Nothing Navigator-san," Robin said, still with a smile then turned back to Madeline who was incredibly hyped to know, "How about I go into town with you and then show you when we get back?"

"Okay!" Madeline agreed. She then turned to Zoro.

"Can we?"

He looked at her with an expression that leaned towards no, but suddenly all of the other crew members spoke up, saying all of the reasons they wanted to go into town. Usopp needed more material, Nami wanted some new clothes, Chopper's medical necessities were a must get, and Robin craved some new books to read. Zoro sighed in defeat after he looked around at everyone.

"Oi Luffy!" he said as he gave in completely, "What do you say?"

"SURE! And since Yuuri and Sanji are staying behind they can watch the ship!"

Nira leaned over to Madeline subtly.

"We're going to need some weapons," she whispered.

Madeline nodded, agreeing with her and as if Zoro had heard them, he said exactly what they wanted to hear.

"Well, I do need to buy some cleaning supplies for my katanas."

The two of them looked at each other and smiled.

"By the way," said Zoro, catching Madeline's and Nira's attention and reeling to him, "I noticed that you have no weapons on you. Nor did you have any when you got on the ship."

"Yeah. Our ship sunk," replied Nira.

"Not just sunk…" started Madeline, but was quickly silenced by her friend's hand.

"And it took all of our stuff with it."

Zoro nodded, acknowledging her answer. Then Luffy interjected.

"SANJI!" he screamed, "IS THE FOOD READY?!"

"LUFFY!" yelled the cook with frustration, "BY THE TIME YOU GET BACK IT WILL BE DONE!"

"Aww…" he whined, "Okay then…"

Madeline removed her ship mate's hand from her mouth and quickly joined Luffy at his side.

"Shall we get going?" she asked.

"Madeline," muttered Nira, "We're docked in Louge Town."

"So?" answered the captain as she looked over her shoulder.

"So?! There are marines everywhere!"

"Well," began Nami, "we'll just have to be careful."

"How about we go in groups," Chopper suggested.

"Yeah. That's a good idea," she agreed, "Okay then…"

The navigator then began splitting them up. Robin and herself were in one. Usopp and Chopper were together and Luffy, Zoro, Nira, and Madeline were in the last.

"YAHOO!" exclaimed Luffy as he readied himself to rush off.

"No. You're staying with us," said Zoro as he tied a rope to him.

"Aw man…" Luffy groaned.

"We all set?" asked Nami as she scanned over everyone, "Well then let's head out."

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!!_**

**_Please review everyone!! I'd appreciate it!!_**

**_-Love Maruri_**


	7. Shopping

"We meet back at the boat, right?" asked Nira as the four of them walked down a back alley.

Zoro nodded to her.

"So where's this weapon shop?"

He looked over his shoulder to her and moved his head up slightly.

"This way."

They walked down the alley in a specific formation. Zoro was up at the front leading the way. Madeline and Nira stood side by side each other and Luffy was at the back, making sure that the two of them didn't try to make a run for it, even though they only had one direction they could run seeing as that Luffy still had the rope tied around him.

"Oh wow…" said Nira as they entered the small shop.

"My husband is sick today," said an older woman as she walked out of a door at the back, "Is there anything I can get you?"

"Would you happen to have throwing knives?" the teal haired girl asked.

"Yes. Right over there."

She directed every ones attention to a wall glimmering hand blades.

"Shit…" sounded Zoro's voice.

Nira and Madeline turned their attention to him as they heard loud, running steps go out the entrance. Zoro then jerked around as he reached the outside pavement.

"You two stay here!" he demanded and then ran off.

The two young girls looked to each other, shrugged, and went back to their previous interests.

"Oooo…" cooed Madeline, her eyes shining as she actually found a weapon she liked, "Miss. What are these here?"

"Those are bo staves, my dear," she answered.

A beaming grin crept up onto the captain's face.

"Perfect," she said quietly, "Would there happen to be one that has something special about it?"

The woman nodded and quickly walked over to the red head.

She reached up and gripped one of the closed and locked cases that was propped upon and displayed on the wall. She undid the latches on the side and exposed a light weight staff that had the dark brown, polished wood look. It seemed as if it had never been out of the case. The engraved red and black dragon was as clear as day and it gave off a bright shine as she lifted it out of the cramped container and into the light.

"This one was specifically crafted for a Marine who specialized in melee combat," she told, "but sadly, he died when pirates raided here a few years ago."

"Ma'am!" said Nira, "How much are these?"

Nira held up a box of shining throwing knives that had a metallic dragon for the hilts. The older woman looked over at her.

"Those are on sale today. Half off, so that makes them… five hundred belli."

"I'll take them," she answered with a smile as the lady handed Madeline the staff and walked behind the counter, then she looked over to her captain, "Do you have something?"

Madeline didn't answer for a few seconds. She was too entangled in the look of the staff she held in her hands. Her fingers glided slowly over the carved dragon.

'I think I'm in love with it…' she thought to herself as her brown irises brightened.

"And what about this?" the red head asked as she held it up.

"One hundred belli."

"No way!" she exclaimed.

"I have the money," said Nira as she walked up to the counter.

Madeline grinned as she trotted up next to the counter.

"I'll pay you back. Promise!"

Nira nodded and turned her attention back to the lady.

"We'll take these… And two cleaning kits."

"That will be six hundred and fifty belli."

Nira nodded and dug out the money as the woman retrieved the kits. Nira equipped the knives and placed them all in inconspicuous spots. She turned to Madeline and smiled. Her friend was standing there with a wide smile on her face and twisting and twirling the bo staff around in her hand like she had done it a million times before.

"Come on, Captain," said Nira as she grabbed Madeline's shoulder and gently pushed on it.

"Have a nice day!" said the woman as the two of them exited.

"You too!" Nira replied as she looked back and grinned. She turned around and looked at her comrade. "Now it's time for a ship."

"Yeah," agreed Madeline.

"And since we both can't afford one… I guess we'll go commander one like last time."

"But didn't…" Madeline had to pause to think of his name. "Zoro tell us to stay here?"

Nira's pupils narrowed at her captain's question.

"Pirates, remember?"

"I know. I know," Madeline replied.

They both paused as they looked in opposite directions.

"Let's go 'window' shopping!" the red head suggested energetically.

"Alright then," Nira complied, "Lead the way."

Madeline nodded affirmatively and started walking.

"Oh wait," Nira said as she reached into her small bag of emergency supplies and pulled out a rope, "Here. That way you can tie it onto your back."

"Okay!"

Madeline took the rope in her hands and started to twist it in her grip, but she stopped and stared at it awkwardly. Her eyes showed she was at a loss and Nira knew. Madeline looked at her with an embarrassed smile.

"Help," she said in a cute tone while holding out her arms.

"But of course," Nira laughed as she slung the make-shift holder diagonally across Madeline's torso. She pulled a tight knot in the back and inserted it into the holder.

Madeline grinned as the teal haired girl came back in front of her.

"Thank you."

"No problem," Nira replied, "Now that you're done and set, shall we get going?"

"Alright!"

--

"LUFFY! GET BACK HERE!" screamed Zoro as he sprinted after his captain.

"Why?!" yelled back Luffy with a loud laugh, "This is fun!"

"Luffy!" the green haired man exclaimed, "We need to get back to the girls or they'll leave!"

"AHAHAHAHAHA! Girls?! When did you start calling them tha-"

Luffy skidded to a stop as he reached the intersection.

"Uh-oh…"

Two marines were patrolling the area and weren't paying much attention, but the sound of Luffy's sandals scratching against the stone pavement caused their heads to turn. Their jaws dropped as they looked upon Straw-hat Luffy.

"HEY!" screamed one.

"It's Straw-hat!" screamed the other.

"DAMN IT LUFFY!" yelled Zoro as he joined the hat wearing boy.

He grabbed the collar of Luffy's red, sleeveless shirt and dragged him along behind him roughly. The marines looked at each other, nodded, and chased after the two wanted pirates. And Luffy had a huge goofy grin plastered on his face as Zoro held him in his grip as they retreated.

'Why does this always happen to me?!' groaned Zoro's mind.

--

"That's a nice one," said Madeline as she pointed to a pretty, shining, wooden ship, but both of them shook their heads together.

"Too big…" they said in unison.

They sighed and kept on.

"Hey Nira…" started Madeline.

"Hold that thought," she interrupted, "I have a feeling of impending doom…"

"I'm getting a weird vibe too," added Madeline with a slight agreeing nod, "One I haven't felt in a while…"

"Anyways…" said Nira as she shook her head, wanting to shun that feeling, "What were you saying?"

"I was gonna ask… was it just me or did you see that odd cloud too?"

"The one that seemed to be moving on purpose?"

Madeline nodded as the two of them connected gazes. Both of their eyes showed worry.

"I… I think we should get back," Nira suggested with a worried voice.

"Y-Yeah…"

--

Zoro slid in front of the entrance to the weapon shop. Him and Luffy were able to lose the two marines thankfully. Zoro was frantic and Luffy was still as carefree as ever.

"Hey lady," Zoro panted, "Did the two girls leave her?"

The woman nodded and pointed.

"They went that way."

"GAH!" he exclaimed then ran off yet again still pulling his captain along.

--

"I think we need to…"

Nira stopped her sentence and looked up at the sky with an expression of wonder. She lifted her hand up and pointed upwards.

"There's that cloud again…" she trailed, "Is it bigger or is that just me?"

Madeline looked up as well and her expression also turned to one of wonder.

"Hm… I think it's bigger."

"I thought so."

The cloud began to descend to the ground and the two girls froze. Both of their heads turned to the other and they blinked cluelessly.

"Um… N-Nira…" muttered Madeline as her voice shook.

"I know," she replied, "If that's what, or should I say who, that is then I think we should run."

Nira pointed yet again as the cloud floated above the ground and started to form. Madeline's eyes followed quickly to the huge cloud of smoke. Her eyes widened and her irises flashed.

"Oh shit…" Her hand whipped to Nira's wrist and gripped on as tight as she could and she turned on her heels. "Come on!"

The two girls bolted off in a quick retreat, attempting to escape the wrath of the being. He formed completely into the massive Marine beast he was. The two lit and smoking cigars and all. He turned his head to the direction the two girls had run off in and his eyes widened.

He recognized them.

"HEY YOU TWO!" he screamed in a rough tone.

The two of them yelped as his rough voice reached their ears and they sped up. The muscle built Marine growled and easily trailed after them with a tail of smoke behind him.

--

Zoro and Luffy were now quickly walking down a back street as to not draw attention to themselves as they searched for the two girls they had lost.

'Where had the two of them run off to…' Zoro questioned as him and Luffy approached the opening of the alley.

Suddenly two young women rushed right in front of them and a huge Marine was rushing right behind. Zoro's eyes widened in realization that the two ladies were in fact Nira and Madeline and the Marine was Smoker.

"Aww shit…" he mumbled.

"Oh no!" Luffy yelled as he realized the sight also.

"Luffy. We need to catch up!"

"Okay!" complied Luffy with a grin. He reached out and grabbed Zoro. "Gomu Gomu no…" His free arm stretched suddenly evading all contact with Smoker and easily gripped Nira's shoulder.

--

Nira looked back with a scared expression as she felt someone grab her shoulder. Her eyes widened at the sight she got.

--

"NO ROCKET!"

He and the swordsman shot forward.

"YOU BAKA!" Zoro screamed as they flew towards the two girls.

--

Nira started to fall back as the snap of the rubber arm pulled her back slightly. Madeline took notice of her friend and turned around to see what had caused it after she stopped. Her eyes widened as Luffy and Zoro approached the two of them. Zoro picked Nira up and the girl frantically reached and held her friend securely as they kept moving.

The half cloud man stopped as he saw the four of them speed off.

"Shit…"

He changed completely and quickly and soared to his own ship.

He reverted back to his original form once he was over the deck. The sound of his soles slamming on the upper floor shook the boards.

"FOLLOW THAT SHIP!"

--

The four of them landed on the ship's deck with a loud smack. Madeline jumped to her feet.

"GET US MOVING!" she screamed, her hat slipping somewhat, "NOW!"

Everyone was aboard and actually took the command from the foreign captain. Zoro was up on his feet and jerked the anchor up. Nami rushed to the steering wheel and Usopp released the sails and the ship began to move.

Sanji walked out of the kitchen while twisting his hands around in a towel. The commotion had brought him out and his gaze went straight to Madeline. He opened his mouth, but Nira's voice sounded above his.

"Smoker's coming!"

"No… No. No. No. No…" the red head repeated as she backed up to a wall.

Nira looked to Sanji who started walking towards her and she did the same, but she reached Madeline first.

"Come one Madeline," she whispered as she bent down, "I'll hide you."

"But… But… Doc… I… I just can't leave…"

"Madeline," said Nira in an authoritive voice, "Oi, cook."

Sanji turned on his heel to them.

"Yes?"

"Where's your biggest storage room?" she asked, "We need to hide there for a bit, or Madeline will be even worse for wear."

Zoro walked up to them and knelt down.

"I'll take you," he said.

"Why?!" screamed Sanji, "I know where it is as well, you shitty marimo!"

Zoro looked over to the cook and glared and even though he was ready to attack him he knew that that would have to wait until some other time.

"B-B-But…" the red head stuttered.

"Come on Madeline," she cut off as she stood up, "I don't want a repeat."

"Let's go," said Sanji, suddenly being right beside Madeline, "They're getting closer."

Nira nodded and followed Zoro as he started to walk down the stairs that lead below the deck. Sanji reached down and picked Madeline up in his hold. He held her close to his side as they followed close behind Zoro and Nira while guiding her gently.

"In here," said Zoro as he opened a door.

The room was wide and was full of cargo.

"You first Sanji."

The blonde nodded and walked past the swordsman with a slightly violent step while still easily pulling Madeline behind. Nira went in after, but was stopped by a firm grip and was pulled backwards.

"I promise, those Marines won't make it on the ship," Zoro assured.

"And if they do?" she questioned.

"They won't be for long."

She stared at him for a few moments then smiled gratefully.

As soon as Sanji loosened his grip on her waist, Madeline automatically moved to a corner. She pulled her legs up to her chest and her hat slipped down onto her face and hid her eyes. Nira strolled over to her friend and looked down at her, knowing the exact cause of her fear.

"Come on Sanji or you'll miss the fun!" told Zoro in an impatient yet excited tone.

"Hold on," replied Sanji in a soft but aggressive voice as he bent down in front of the captain.

He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

"Now don't you fret, Madeline," he told her sweetly as he lifted her hat back up to where he could see her chocolate brown eyes, "Everything will be fine."

Madeline looked up to him and stared with slight fear in her gaze, but she smiled anyways feeling the promise and reassurance in his.

"Alright," he said with a sweet smile and patted her head.

As he ran out of the room, both Nira and Madeline watched as the door slammed shut. The teal haired girl sighed heavily and began to barricade the entrance.

"I'm worried Madeline," said Nira, "What if they don't…"

Madeline shook her head.

"Nira…" she started as she looked up and smiled, "I think they can do it."

Nira blinked in thought for a few seconds and smiled as well.

"I think you're right," she agreed, along with a nod.

"I'm always right," said the captain with a wide smile.

The long haired girl chuckled at her friend as she kept stacking the crates.

"Yeah. Just keep telling yourself that."

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE IN ANYWAY!!_**

**_Please review everyone!! I would really appreciate it!! And so would my co-author!!_**

**_-Love Maruri_**


	8. That's Captain

The wind split around the ship and rushed about the open spaces. Zoro stood by the railing, watching the marine ship start moving after them. His fingers tapped lightly on the wood and then the sound of heels running across joined in with the sound of his tapping.

"Do you see that cloud following that ship?" he asked as he pointed towards a thick cloud.

The blonde nodded.

"Yeah," he answered as he joined him by his side fully.

Zoro paused for a while and stared. His head turned to Sanji slightly.

"You don't think it's him, do you?" he asked.

"Yes I do," Sanji confirmed, "Who is he going after?"

"Don't know," replied Zoro as he straightened up and turned around, "Nami!"

"What?!" screamed the navigator as she approached the edge of the upper deck.

"How long until they reach us?"

"About fifteen minutes," she replied in a loud voice.

'Good,' he thought, 'that gives us time to prepare.'

He nodded to Nami and ran off. As he approached the mast he started to slow down. His mind started to work and he formulated a defensive plan.

"Usopp!" he called, "We're going to need the rest of those sails open!"

Usopp nodded affirmatively, but stopped and looked back at the swordsman.

"Wait, I th-thought you liked f-fighting?"

Zoro's gaze moved to the marksman.

"I do, but if they're after what I think they are then those Marines are going to be a problem."

Both Usopp and Sanji looked at Zoro with a wondering expression, but Sanji got an idea as well. Usopp on the other hand shrugged it off and climbed up the rope to the main sail. Zoro looked at Sanji and he nodded.

"Luffy!" Sanji screamed.

The stretchy young man came bounding up to him excitedly.

"Yeah?"

"We have a problem," told the cook as he pointed to the cloud.

The straw hat captain looked out upon the foggy enemy.

"Wow…" said Luffy, "What's that?"

Sanji's hand hit his forehead in frustration and the other rose up quickly.

"LUFFY!" he screamed as he brought down his fist at a break neck speed, "THAT'S SMOKER YOU IDIOT!"

His hand slammed into the back of Luffy's head as a bit of his frustration was released in the impact. Luffy's hand went straight up to his sore cranium.

"Owowowow…" he whined, but stopped as the realization of what his cook had just told him sunk in, "Really?"

Sanji's arm began to reel and crank itself up again for another mind numbing blow, but he stopped. He inhaled a deep breath in order to relax and calm his frantic and angry nerves.

"Yes," he pushed out while he brought his arm down to his side.

"Well that's not good," said Luffy as he set his hands on his hips.

"Ya think?!" Sanji said in reply to his captain's obvious observation.

Luffy smiled slightly then looked around and noticed the ship was facing in the opposite direction it was before.

"Are we turning around?" he asked, yet again, stating the obvious.

'In the name of…'

"Yes Luffy," Sanji said through slightly clenched teeth, "We are turning around."

Luffy nodded to him and smiled wide.

"We need to protect those girls."

"We've already done that," answered Sanji, suddenly becoming very proud of his captain's decision.

Luffy smiled wider and pulled his shoulder back. The hand of the arm that was not being revved up gripped the shoulder of the one that was.

"Gomu Gomu no…"

His arm and voice paused. Sanji's eye widened as he saw what Luffy was preparing to do and he stumbled back, wanting to get out of the way.

"PISTOL!"

All the tension that he built up was suddenly released, all in one huge and stretchy movement and the boy was dragged along behind.

Zoro slowly walked up to Sanji's side and they both watched the young man be pulled to the enemy's ship in silence.

"Did he just…" trailed Zoro.

All Sanji did was nod for a reply.

--

His hand gripped the railing of the Marine cruiser and he landed not long after. Smoker took notice of the noisy landing and descended upon the deck. He reformed into the towering Marine and stared at the "Wanted" pirate.

"What are you doing here, Straw-hat?" he asked in a rough voice with smoke escaping from between his lips.

Luffy jumped around after he recovered and his eyes widened as he looked at him.

"AH!" Luffy screamed while snapping his arms up to point, "IT'S YOU!"

"Answer me," the Marine commander demanded.

Luffy cranked his arm and sent a punch flying at him.

"You're not getting them!" he screamed.

The knuckles of his fist did make contact, but not the contact that Luffy wanted or needed. His fist passed right through his upper chest and Luffy quickly retracted his extended arm.

'Eww!' he thought to himself, 'That's still nasty.'

"So they are on your ship," Smoker said with a smirk.

"SO?!" Luffy screamed in reply, "You're still not getting them!"

Luffy sprinted over to the railing behind him and pulled his arm back again.

"GOMU GOMU NO ROCKET!"

His arm stretched yet again towards his original ship. Right as Luffy soared towards the Going Merry, a Marine officer rushed up to the glaring Smoker.

"Sir! What do we do now?"

"We follow. And see what the two of them do."

--

The two men stood by the railing, watching and waiting for Luffy to return and soon enough they saw him hurtling towards the ship. Their eyes widened as the realized where his destination was.

"OH S-"

They were both cut off as Luffy slammed into the both of them. All three men were stopped as they smacked up against the mast and they slid down to the deck. Luffy quickly leapt to his feet and Sanji followed suit and began to bring his arm upwards.

"Smoker's after the girls!" Luffy yelled.

The blonde stopped his blow from being executed and every bit of his anger dissipated.

"Are you serious?!"

"Yes!" answered Luffy and he started to continue, but stopped as he noticed Zoro sitting up slowly, "What's wrong with him?"

The swordsman jumped onto his feet and smacked his captain upside the head.

"You landed on me!" he screamed.

"Forget that Zoro!" said Sanji, "We've got to keep them away!"

--

She pushed another box, adding onto the wall of crates and things. The ship jerked suddenly and the cargo shifted as a loud smack echoed. Nira jumped slightly at the surprise and crouched down, her eyes never leaving the door. The ship jerked again and Madeline slid and rammed into a filled barrel.

"Ow…" she groaned quietly.

"You okay?" asked Nira.

She nodded and they both looked around at Nira's work.

She had created a mini maze. There was a path that led to the corner that was occupied by them and of course there were false ends. Nira looked back to Madeline.

"Do you think that'll stop them?" she asked.

"Probably," replied Madeline.

Yelling permeated the ceiling and echoed in the storage room. The teal haired one looked up with a worried expression as she slowly moved her way over to her friend. Madeline giggled quietly once Nira sat beside her.

"What?"

Madeline pointed at her and gave a very sly "all-knowing" smile.

"You're worried about him."

Nira went to reply with a snide remark, but decided to shut her mouth and she nodded.

"Yeah. I am, but I'm worried about the rest of them too."

"I know," said Madeline with smile, "It's just the fact that you're worried about him."

Madeline looked up and her smile widened.

"Aw… That's cute… That's really cute."

"Shut u-"

The loud boom of cannon fire shook the ship and the two young girls looked to each other with wide eyes.

--

The blade slid through the metal ball without protest.

"Great!" stated the green haired man, "Now they're firing at us."

Sanji nodded and returned his gaze to the marine ship. His visible eye widened.

"Shit…" he muttered.

Zoro took notice of his reaction and looked to the thing that had caused it.

"What…"

"He's coming!" Sanji screamed as he pointed up to a menacing cloud.

"DAMN!" Zoro cursed, "Get ready everyone!"

Usopp stopped as he climbed up to the crow's nest and looked to him.

"What can we do?!" he questioned, "Everything we throw at him just goes right through!"

"I don't know, but we have to do something!"

--

Nira twisted some of the fabric of her skirt as the sound of yelling reached down in the storage room. Madeline's eyes went to the door and her eyes softened.

"I have to know what's going on up there," Nira stated and stood up suddenly.

She started to walk towards the door and Madeline wanted to follow. The red head pushed herself onto her knees, realizing that her body wouldn't let her do much more, and started to crawl behind her. Nira stopped as her hand reached the door knob and turned to the captain.

"Stay here."

"NO!" yelled Madeline in protest, "I can't…"

"Don't worry," Nira replied, "I'll be back. I promise. And look." She pulled out a glass sphere with a light liquid inside. "I have a back up."

"But…"

"I promise I'll be back."

Madeline sighed in defeat and returned to her corner. Nira gratefully nodded and exited the room, shutting the door right behind her.

--

"AH!" shrieked Chopper who was frantically running around, "What are we going to do?! What are we going to do?! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!"

Smoker reformed as he gently landed on the Going Merry's wooden deck. The cracking sounds of him popping his knuckles drifted through the dense sea air around. His eyes scanned over the crew slowly as he examined each one who was in a fighting stance.

Zoro stood in a low position, all three swords unsheathed and gleaming. Sanji stood beside him with one hand in his pocket and the other holding his cigarette in place and Luffy was positioned in front of them both.

"Go away Smoker!" demanded Luffy in a loud voice.

"I can't do that," replied the towering man.

"And why's that?!" Zoro questioned suddenly.

"You have two fugitives on this ship."

"Yeah. Us," Zoro remarked, "Or did you forget the bounties on us?"

Smoker let out a laugh.

"No. I haven't forgotten about that at all."

There was an agonizing pause as a gust of wind whipped between them.

--

I peaked around the door frame and saw the sight of the three men standing up against one of my friend's worst fears. I gulped as I realized that I had to make it to Madeline's room without being caught. My shoulders fell as I forced myself to relax. I nodded.

Quickly and quietly, I sprinted over to her door and slipped into the dark room, not making one sound as I did.

My arms tensed as I pushed the door shut, trying not to make it creak as it closed. Once the door was completely shut, I hurriedly searched and found both of our weapons laying on the bed. I smiled as I equipped the throwing knives and held the staff in my hand, but I jumped slightly at the loud laugh that Smoker emitted.

--

His bellowing laugh quieted down as he looked to the blonde.

"You mean you don't know?" he asked.

"Know what?" Sanji replied with a confused tone and Smoker's laughter started up again.

"The two you have on this ship are the fugitives."

"They're pirates," Sanji countered, "What does that have to do with being fugitives?"

Smoker smirked wide and smoke poured out from between his teeth as he released a breath.

"They might be pirates," he informed, "But they were apart of the Marines and Navy first."

All three men had wide eyes as the new information sank in. Luffy's hand clenched and his eyes flared in a defensive protest.

"That can't be true!" he screamed, "They're nothing like you!"

"But it is true. And if I know her, one of them is cowering in fear in a corner."

"SHUT UP!" Luffy yelled, "Part of those or not! They are my NAKAMA!"

Both Zoro and Smoker stared at the captain in disbelief.

"You really think that?" Smoker asked.

"Yes I do and…" Luffy pulled his arm back, "YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM!"

Luffy released the attack and Zoro took this chance to strike along with him. Smoker shook his head slightly as the two assaults approached him. His entire body transformed into the foggy gas and Luffy's fist passed right through as did all three of Zoro's blades.

He reformed as Zoro stumbled behind him and Luffy's arm began to return to him. He watched the two pirates recover and Sanji took immediate notice.

"FUGITIVES OR NOT!" he screamed as he leapt up into the air, swinging his leg upwards, "I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO TAKE THEM!"

He brought down his leg in a bone crushing axe kick and dug his heel into Smoker's shoulders. Smoker's legs bent down in give under the pressure of the kick. Sanji nodded to himself slightly, pushed back off of the enemy, and landed on his feet smoothly.

--

Nira's eyes widened as she watched them defend her and Madeline. The door shut while her gaze went to the ground and walked from the door slightly.

'Do they really care that much?' she asked herself.

Then her mind wandered randomly back to the red head girl down in the storage room.

"She'll need her weapon…" she whispered.

Suddenly the door handle turned and Nira's head snapped as the clicking reached her ears. Her eyes looked around frantically, searching for a place to hide. The door hinges started creaking as it opened slowly. Nira dove under the bed and back up as far as she could. The door shut quietly and the sound of footsteps that weren't too visible tapped across the floor. Nira froze as the steps stopped in front of the bed and her hand moved right to her mouth. The person began to bend down to their knees and the long haired girl backed up completely to the wall behind her.

"Where's Naoki?" asked a familiar voice as two brown eyes faintly came into sight.

Nira's entire body relaxed as she crawled out from under the cot.

"Who?" she asked confused as to who or what she was referring to.

"Naoki," Madeline repeated, "Where is he?"

They stood there for a few seconds with Nira staring at her friend.

"Oh," she said as she realized who she was talking about. She held out the staff to her. "Here…" She paused, "he is."

"Thank you," Madeline said with a smile.

A loud slam came from outside on the deck and both girls looked to each other with curious faces. Madeline turned back and opened the wooden slab just a crack to she could peer out and Nira did the same. Both of their eyes widened.

Luffy rushed up to Sanji's side, who was now slumped up against one of the bars of the railing and Luffy helped him up to his feet.

Madeline's eye twitched and her fist clenched up. A low, quiet growl escaped her chest while she watched the blonde stand. Nira took notice of her friend's reaction and she couldn't help, but smile at the defensive response she showed.

'She really likes him…' she thought as she looked back.

Then her face went back to a serious expression.

"Got yours?" she whispered as she pulled out a glass orb.

"Un," Madeline confirmed as she too pulled out a sphere.

"Good. So, floor and face, or smash together and soak him?"

Madeline smirked and her eyes flashed.

"Let's soak 'im."

"Okay. Remember, you throw first."

Another slam, only it was much quieter, brought the two girls attention back out to the deck. Their expressions became confused.

Smoker was no where to be found.

"Come out, coward!" screamed Zoro as he held the handle of his sword in between his teeth.

"I don't like this…" Madeline said in a worried tone.

"Neither do I," Nira added with a quiet snarl.

Suddenly a beastly grip held the two of their collars and roughly flung them out and onto the deck. Nira slammed face first into the wood floor while Madeline tumbled until she had collided with something. Nira rolled over with her hand covering her nose as she did.

"Ow…" Madeline groaned as she sat up although she struggled.

She looked up to see what had stopped her and she smiled hesitantly once she had.

"Sorry 'bout that Zoro…" she apologized.

"Hn," was his only reply, seeing that he was far too focused on glaring at Smoker.

"Hey Madeline," said Nira as she stood up, "Remember what I said?"

"Yep!" she said as she jumped to her feet.

Nira smiled.

"HEY SMOKER!" she yelled, "YOU STUPID CHIMNEY!"

Smoker's attention snapped to her and he growled.

"SAY THAT AGAIN AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU!" he screamed.

"Who said you were allowed onto the ship, you god damned SMOKE BOMB!"

Madeline pulled her arm back and threw the small sphere. Nira did the same and sent hers flying. The two orbs smashed into each other right above his head and salt water drenched him completely.

The red head gripped her bo staff and pole vaulted onto Smoker's shoulder's. He pulled his head upwards with a curious expression playing on his features.

"Don't you ever think that I can't kick your ass, sir!"

She leaned back on her heels and brought Naoki up. Her muscles tightened as she plunged the end of the staff into the back of his neck. Smoker froze as a sharp pain quickly shot through his body. Madeline nodded at her work and leaped off of him as he fell. Nira smiled and six knives held the Marine down on the deck. She pulled another blade out from under her skirt and held it in her grasp.

"May I, Captain?" she asked.

Madeline looked up in thought and shrugged.

"You can do whatever except kill him."

Nira smiled wider and walked towards, the knife held firmly in her hand.

"Hm… This won't kill him will it?" she asked again.

"Actually," said Zoro as he realized what she was talking about and gripped her wrist, "Yes. It will."

"Dang…"

Madeline laughed loudly at her friend's "punishment".

Then they all looked at the pinned Smoker. Their eyes widened. He was drying off faster than they had anticipated.

"Damn…" Nira cursed, "Get me a bucket of sea water!"

"Too late!" Zoro replied as he grabbed her and started dragging her away from the danger.

"Madeline!" Nira screamed, "MOVE!"

The red head nodded and turned to run, but was quickly stopped. Smoker's hand had snapped over and gripped her ankle roughly and pulled her to the wooden floor boards.

"No!" Nira yelled as she struggled against Zoro's hold.

"I'm not letting you get caught!" he yelled back at her.

Smoker chuckled deeply as he easily stood back up and jerked Madeline up with him, putting his hand on her wrist as he did. Madeline cringed as his hand tightened around her slim forearm. Suddenly an all too familiar knife lodged itself into his manacle. He looked down, saw the blade, and quickly pulled it out as his grip got tighter again. His eyes went up and connected with Nira's, seeing that she had gotten out of Zoro's hold.

"Let go of her," Nira hissed.

Smoker's eyes narrowed, but a ripping pain came to his senses.

"Let her go!" Yuuri exclaimed as she flew off after clawing into his back.

He winced slightly and tightened his grip even more.

"AYE!" screamed Madeline in pain, practically feeling the internal and external bruises form on her wrist.

Nira snarled at Smoker and suddenly his face erupted into flames.

"AH-HA!" Usopp cheered from up in thee crow's nest, "GOT-CHA!"

"SHIT!" Smoker groaned as he reverted back into his smoky form.

Nira bolted into the smoke, caught her knife, blade first unfortunately, gripped her captain, and ran right back out. Once she was out, she stopped. She flipped the knife in the air and stabbed it into the railing behind her.

"Let me see your wrist," she told as she lifted up Madeline's arm with both hands, accidentally getting blood on her arm, "It'll be fine. Nothing broken."

As Nira let go of her she pulled the knife out of the railing and turned to the now back to normal Smoker.

"Come and get me Chimney Man!" she provoked.

Madeline watched out of the corner of her eye. Smoker growled at Nira and started to rush towards her when something in the back of Madeline's mind snapped.

"STOP!"

Zoro jumped in surprise from the sudden outburst from the female captain and Smoker froze. Madeline stood straight and her eyes flashed as she walked towards him.

'You can do this Madeline,' she told herself, 'Face up to him…'

'You can do this Madeline. I know you can,' Nira encouraged inwardly.

Madeline stopped in front of the white haired man.

"I want you to leave this ship NOW."

Smoker stood straight and tall and his eyes searched hers. He smiled slightly. Watching her stand up to him was amusing, seeing as though he could always tell that she was afraid of being hurt by him… again. He leaned in towards her.

"And why's that, Maddie?" he asked, taunting her.

Madeline's eye twitched.

"Leave you, bastard!" she screamed.

Everyone around could tell she was upset. That something had set her off, no one really knew what though… well, except for Nira of course.

"There is absolutely no good reason for you to be attacking this ship! If you are after us, do it when we are just us! Not when we are on another ship."

Smoker laughed at her and leaned in even more.

"I will be back Madeline."

"Alright then."

She leaned in even more so to where there was only a few inches between the two of them.

Suddenly a very quick and gentle burst of air rushed between them and out of nowhere the tips of the Marine's cigars detached and fell to the deck. Madeline smirked as Smoker's eyes widened. Her right arm was now stretched out and was firmly grasping Naoki, who had a small blade protruding out of the top end.

"And that's Captain Madeline to you."

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!!_**

**_Please review everyone!!_**

**_-Love Maruri_**


	9. A Bit of Background

"Nira's going to be alright," said Chopper as he walked out of his office and looked at Sanji who took immediate notice that Zoro did not come out along with him, "Zoro is staying with her for a bit."

"Aww!" Madeline cooed, "That's just too cute."

She laughed inwardly as she watched Chopper hesitate when he saw Sanji's eye twitch.

"You know Sanji…" Chopper began while slowly backing away to the shelter of the men's quarters, "She hasn't really eaten anything and-"

"Really?!" Sanji exclaimed, "Then I'll get right on it!"

--

I laughed a bit more at the extremely sweet blonde's enthusiasm as I slid down the wall behind me while watching Sanji bound off into the kitchen.

I removed my barrette from the top of my head and messed around with it in my hands and my mind wandered to Luffy. I really didn't want him or the others to find out about all of this or my "little" fear.

I sighed as Yuuri landed beside me and watched me switch my brown barrette between my hands.

"Are you going to be alright?" she asked as she watched me intently.

I nodded at her. I could tell she was staring at my seriously bruised wrist. I smiled to myself seeing that she was concerned.

"Ow…" she whined, "If I had arms I would hug you."

"Haha. It's fine," I chuckled, "I need to speak to Luffy though."

Yuuri nodded to me.

"Be right back then," she told me as she flew off to some part of the ship.

"Really?!" screamed Luffy, "Okay!"

I smiled slightly as he skidded to a stop in front of me.

"What's up?" he asked as his eyes sparkled with curiosity.

"Sit, will you," I told as I patted a section of the deck beside me.

"'Kay," he replied and plopped down by my side, cross-legged, "What is it?"

"I'm sorry…" I said in a large sigh.

He tilted his head in confusion.

"For what?"

"I didn't want you all to find out…" I mumbled.

"About the Marines thing?" he said, "It's fine."

I connected gazes with him and I was amazed.

He really didn't care about it. He still had that bright eyed and bushy tailed air about him like when we first met.

"Heck, Zoro was a pirate hunter. Just watch him fight sometime and you will see why everyone fears him," he stated suddenly, "Though I wouldn't ask him for directions. He couldn't find his way out of a paper bag."

"I heard that!" exclaimed Zoro's semi-muffled voice.

Luffy's eyes returned to me and he had a wide grin plastered on his face and for some odd reason… I couldn't help, but grin as well.

"HAHAHAHA!" I laughed while I stared back at him, "I like you Luffy."

"I like you too," he said back to me, "That's why you're my nakama. And Nira too."

"Awww!" I squealed and clamped onto his shoulders.

A few tears escaped my eyes when I shut them as I squeezed him close to me.

"Thanks Luffy…"

My eyes opened shortly once I felt his own arms wrap around me as well.

"It's okay," he said sweetly, still with a smile, "Just don't cry, alright?"

"Alright," I replied back with a laugh.

He laughed along with me, but stopped a few seconds later. I smiled, knowing exactly what he wanted as I watched his entire body shift towards the kitchen.

"SANJI!" he screamed, "I WANT MEAT!"

There was no answer from the kitchen.

"SA-"

"Hold up Luffy. Let me try," I cut off. I altered my attitude slightly and put on a happy and sweet persona. "Yo! Sanji-kun!"

The sound of his shoes hurriedly running to the kitchen door reached my ears and I smiled. Once he appeared in the door way I laughed at the sight that his eye had a gigantic heart.

"Yes?!" he exclaimed in a love struck voice, "How can I help you, Captain Madeline?"

"We're kinda hungry…"

"Really?!" he exclaimed happily and then motioned us to come, "Then why don't you come on in."

I nodded affirmatively as I started to trail after him and looked to Luffy. He was right behind me and apparently extremely grateful to the fact that I had gotten Sanji that quickly. I smiled more and moved out of the way for the captain and he took my gesture very willingly. Although I could tell Sanji wasn't too happy about it.

As I entered the door frame, I felt someone's hand grip my wrist and tug at it slightly.

"Come look at this," came Nami's hushed voice as she pulled a little more on my arm.

I nodded to her and quickly followed.

"Now, you have to be quiet," she told me while she held the door handle.

As I confirmed that I understood, she opened the door slowly. I smiled at the sight I saw.

There the two of them were. Nira was sitting upright in her bed asleep, her mid-thigh length hair crumpling up behind her back and Zoro sitting in a chair at the bed side with his head resting on her lap, asleep as well.

Nami signaled for us to head back to the kitchen while shutting the door silently.

--

My right eye opened as the sound of the door clicking shut reached my ears.

"Okay," I said, 'They're gone."

"You know, they're not going to let us live this down," he stated as he sat up.

"Yeah. Yeah. I know."

"So…"

--

"SHUT UP WILL YOU LUFFY!" Sanji screamed as we entered the kitchen.

"But I'm HUUUNNNNGRYYY!" Luffy whined

Sanji raised his arm quickly in annoyance at his captain's complaining.

"Woah," I said as Nami and I took a seat at the table, "Violence."

Sanji froze in his position and looked to the both of us. His smile returned to his face immediately.

"I'm sorry," he told us and smacked Luffy over the head anyways as he turned his attention back to him, "I don't care if you're hungry! You still have to wait."

--

After a long conversation about how I trained, Zoro became curious about me and my past.

"Now what about you?" he asked.

"Well… There's nothing to my story actually. I worked for the Navy for a few years, left, stole Yuuri, and met Madeline along the way."

Zoro nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but the door was suddenly thrown open. My eyes sunk as the knob of the door slammed into the wooden wall behind it and my dear friend stood in the door frame.

"Allo!" she exclaimed in a happy voice.

Both mine and Zoro's gaze went straight to her and the two steaming plates of food she had in each hand.

Zoro nodded again, but to her this time and stood up as well as stopping me from getting up. He took one of the plates from her and easily handed it to me.

"Thanks," he said for me while he sat back down.

I laughed inwardly as I watched Madeline's face scrunch up into a confused expression. It always seemed to make me laugh when she tilted her head when she was confused.

"Are you gonna take your plate?" she asked him, "Or are you just going to sit there and let the food get cold?"

Zoro turned to her slightly and stared at her and then at the plate.

"That's mine?" he asked.

"Well, duh," Madeline said with a "Point out the obvious" tone, "Who else's would it be?"

"Oh…" he said as he stood up again and retrieved the plate.

"Haha," Madeline chuckled, "I'm just giving you a hard time."

Zoro looked over at her and cocked an eyebrow at her, seeing that innocent smile she gave.

Suddenly Luffy screamed.

"HEY MADELINE!" his loud voice echoed, "What's up with this stick?!"

"You touch that stick and you won't see the light of tomorrow!" she yelled back and took off to the kitchen in a sprint.

Zoro had jumped at her sudden out burst and nearly choked on his meat. I chuckled at his surprised reaction. Luckily for me, I was completely used to her yelling bursts.

My eyes traveled to Madeline and I watched her skid to a stop as Luffy came sliding out of the kitchen. She turned back to Zoro and me with, yet again, a confused expression. The two of us shrugged in reply and then Sanji came walking out of the door frame.

"She warned you, didn't she?" he remarked as he calmly strode out of the door, 'Here you are."

He smiled extremely sweetly as he stopped in front of her and held the staff out. I could tell she was grinned back when she turned around to look at him to take the staff back.

--

The sound of plates crashing and breaking and curse words being said echoed as Madeline gripped Naoki. The two of them faced Chopper's office and Sanji's eye widened at the sight of the broken dishes. Madeline took notice and turned right back around to him.

"I'll take care of it, Sanji-kun," she told him as she spun him around gently and pushed him back into the kitchen.

She let out a sigh and threw all of her attention back at Chopper's office. She sped over to the room, where Zoro was finishing up picking the broken porcelain off the floor and she offered out her hands.

"Would you like me to take that?" the red head asked.

"Yes," he answered back while carefully setting the pieces in her hands, "Be careful. There are some really sharp edges."

'Will do!" she said affirmatively and headed back to the kitchen. "Hey Sanji," she started as she entered the kitchen, "I have some broke-"

"Oh my!" he said, "Why are you carrying those?"

The blonde took the multi-sized shards of broken dishes from her gently and swiftly and dumped them into the nearest trash can.

"Are you cut?"

--

"No," I said with a smile, "I'm fine. Really I am."

He smiled back at me and let out a sigh in relief.

"Then are you actually hungry tonight?" he asked me as he pulled out a chair and motioned me to it, "I have just finished preparing your plate."

I smiled wide as I hurriedly walked over to the chair and plopped down into it, my head going back so I could look at him better.

"Thanks!"

He nodded and quickly went to get my plate. He was extremely fast in all honesty and not too mention swift as he came back, expertly moving around the chairs. Sanji slid the plate off his hand and in front of me smoothly then took a seat right between Nami and me.

"Now, I think we would all like to know a bit more about you, Madeline," Sanji stated out of nowhere as I started to eat.

I froze in my spot slightly and gulped the food I had in my mouth quietly. My eyes went to the table before me.

"I just want to know why you had gotten so afraid of Smoker," said Nami, "I mean you were pretty shook up."

"Well…" I started, "I was…"

Suddenly a loud thump sounded from outside. I sighed heavily suddenly.

"And she says I'm the worse one…" I said while I stuck my fork into the fish on my plate.

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!_**

_I'm sorry that it's taken this long to get this out... Seeing that I've been working on Happy Meal as well, so yeah. But I am doing my best. I am also doing what I can to improve my writing so I'm hoping that either the tenth or the eleventh chapter will be written better. Please review!!_

_-Love Maruri_


	10. Earn It

I laid down onto the mattress on my bed and as I let out a large sigh, my entire diaphragm deflated like a balloon. I felt slightly tired for some reason, but my eyes didn't want to shut just yet, so they fell over to the wide open door. I released another breath and removed my barrette from my head and twirled it around my index finger in boredom.

"Soo…" came Zoro's voice from the door, "You've been shot at, eh?"

My tired gaze rolled back to the door and stared at the green haired young man as the door clicked shut. My head nodded and moved back to having me stare at the ceiling.

"Yep. Nothing really amazing," I said adding on to my nod, "Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering," he said, "because Nira had told me something about when your ship sunk and all…"

I laughed suddenly and I sensed his change to confusion.

"We're so different… Her and I…" I said randomly.

I think that my head must have been drawn to the door or something because yet again it positioned itself to it, but I of course was staring at Zoro.

"I now see getting shot as a good thing," I admitted, "I know it sounds crazy, but I do."

"Hm. Yeah, well I don't," he remarked.

I laughed again as he walked away from the door and up to me.

"So would you like to tell me your part of the story?" he asked while stopping at my bed side, "I've heard hers."

"Sure," I replied, "That is if you're willing to listen."

"I'm up for it."

I nodded to him and sat up right as he sat down and situated himself on the floor before me.

I began, "I had worked for the Marines for the longest time…"

I told about working under Smoker for practically all of the time I was apart of the Marines. How I was worked like a dog and pretty much treated as one day in and day out, and then one day, something had snapped… Figuratively and literally.

"The thing that had snapped literally was my nose," I said as I motioned his attention to it.

He blinked at me for a few seconds and leaned in closer to see what I meant and what I was pointing to. Then he fell back into his sitting position and his eyes blinked a few more times at me.

"Your nose is… crooked?"

I nodded and set my arm on my thigh.

"Mm-hm. And the reason that snapped was because I was not in the mood to be bossed around that day and said a few wrong things."

"O… kay…"

I continued, "And a few weeks later I planned my escape and did it successfully."

"How did you two meet then?" Zoro questioned.

"Well…"

I explained that both her and I got ourselves caught by the same base since we really had no where to run to and were thrown into side-by-side cells. Once we had been in the dungeon for two hours in complete silence I couldn't take it anymore.

"Do you remember what you said?"

I laughed as I recalled the exact words that emitted from my lips.

"Yeah. It was kinda stupid though…" I said with a light chuckle spread over my voice.

"What was it?" he pushed.

"Well… She had Yuuri with her at the time and looked over to her and said 'Pretty bird' with a wide smile stuck on my face."

Zoro started to laugh and two different voice pitches joined coming from the door way joined in with him and I smiled as they walked in.

"Have you two come to listen?" I asked with a laugh.

"I have!" said Sanji with a voice of sweetness, an affectionate smile, and a laugh.

Nira nodded slightly to agree, but I knew she would input things as well as listen.

"Anyways…"

I went on about how we had talked for most of the time after that, getting to know each other and figure out why the other had ended up here.

"Yeah," started Nira, "And all though out our chat she kept that stupid grin on her face."

"It was not stupid," I argued.

"Yes it was," she answered back.

My hand automatically went to the middle of my upper chest in offense. My taking offense was false of course, seeing that she always called my smiling all the time stupid.

"Well anyways," I continued, "then some Marine came down and gave us some food-"

"If that's what you would want to call it…" Sanji scoffed while crossing his arms over his chest.

"Actually it was," Nira chuckled and looked to him, "I didn't eat though. I had given it to Maddie and Yuuri."

My pupils narrowed suddenly and a growl escaped my throat. I disliked that name so incredibly much and not to mention every time some one would call me that, they'd always or usually be taunting me.

I noticed that Nira turned to me and took note of my reaction and discomfort.

"Sorry Captain," she apologized.

"What's the matter, Madeline?" Sanji asked seeming curious as to why I reacted that way.

"I said the 'M' word," Nira told him.

His eye showed confusion and more curiosity as to what the "M" word was.

"You mean Mad-"

I watched Nira cut him off with her hand as the beginning of another growl started to surface.

"Yes! That," she confirmed.

A cloud of hearts practically formed around the cook while Nira held onto his mouth, being very careful as to avoid the lit cigarette. I laughed seeing his "noodle" reaction and told him that it was okay when he gave me a slightly muffled apology. Once Nira let go, she decided that she wanted to get something to drink and both Sanji and Zoro started to head in separate directions, but something popped into my mind suddenly and I stopped the two men quickly.

"Thank you both," I said to them gratefully, "for all that you did today."

Sanji grinned from ear to ear and radiated these wonderful feeling vibes.

"Oh, but it's no problem at all!" he cooed with that sweet tone of his.

I looked to Zoro as I saw him roll his eyes at the "weak" hearted cook and I chuckled. The two men before me were so different that it was extremely amusing.

"Yeah," Zoro said agreeing with the blonde reluctantly, "You are, according to Luffy, part of this crew."

My eyes opened up slightly and my jaw dropped about a centimeter.

"Okay…" I said with a questioning voice, "But… just yesterday you hated me…"

"I didn't hate you exactly," he politely argued, "I just didn't trust you."

I blinked at him dumbfounded as he walked away from me. Sanji had already run off to the kitchen to make sure Nira was alright and had gotten what she wanted. Then a question slammed into my mind.

"How can I get you to trust me?!" I yelled out to him before he got too far away and out of my "quiet" yelling distance.

He stopped and stood out in the middle of the deck for a few seconds then turned his head to look over his shoulder at me.

"You have to earn it!" he replied.

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!!_**

_I hope this chapter was better written. I'm also hoping that chapter 11 will be better written as well. Please keep reading and reviewing!! It's good encouragement!!_

_-Love Maruri_


	11. Are You My Captain

My eyes fluttered open as I came back into consciousness only to groan quietly at the bright light shining into "my" room. We had been here about two weeks now and have, unfortunately, become very accustomed and have fallen into place here. My jaw opened wide as I let out a large yawn and sat up from my sleeping position. I stretched my arms up above my head to wake up the sleepy muscles, but I was rudely interrupted.

My door swung open and slammed into the back wall as my friend busted into the room. I jumped up quickly and had my back completely against the wall with my arms spread out wide and clinging onto the wall like a cat latching onto a post of carpet.

"WAKIE WAKIE! EGGS AND BAKIE!" Madeline exclaimed as she stood there with a wide grin plastered on her face.

"THE FUCK?!" I yelled back, my heart practically lunging out of my chest.

"Sorry," she apologized, "I'm just really happy. I'm getting to help out in the kitchen this morning."

My heavy breathing started to calm down as my "Fight or Flight" reaction faded. She had almost scared me half to death and that didn't even seem to faze her at all seeing that her smile just got wider and wider.

"I've finished up on a batch of doughnuts for ya," she said to me.

My greens eyes locked with her brightly shining brown ones and held onto the gaze, practically with claws.

"They're in the oven right now," she added, "so they should be done soon."

"Doughnuts?!" I questioned as a small smile pulled at my lips, "Really?!"

"But of course," Madeline said, 'Now…"

I watched her eyes travel to my sleep wear and a blush appeared across my face as a sly smile crept up on hers.

"Get up and get dressed," she told me with a slightly suggestive tone, "You should change your shirt before someone else notices as well."

My eyes narrowed at her as she skipped out with a laugh and then, as if on cue Zoro came walking out of the men's quarters with an irritated step.

"Where the hell is my shirt?!" he asked roughly to no one in particular.

I jumped and dove back under my bedding for cover, hands wrenching onto, not only the sheets, but the baggy top I was wearing as well.

"TO-OL-D YOU!" sung Madeline's voice.

"SHUT UP!" I screamed out, forgetting that I was trying to hide.

My eyes widened at the fact that I had blown my cover and my hand slapped over my mouth in frustration to keep me from saying much more. The sound of his shoes somewhat stomping on the deck reached my ears and I tensed. My breathing was slow as to not make the sheets above me to move too much.

His stomping quit and the door to my room creaked quietly.

"Nira…" came his low voice, "Do you know where my shirt is?"

I made the blanket shake in small, rapid motions in reply, but apparently, he didn't quite catch my silent answer.

"Is that a yes?" he asked.

He sounded slightly amused, but also sounded like he was losing his patience and when I didn't answer it was confirmed.

"Are you going to answer me or am I going to have to make you?"

I jumped at his mix between a question and a threat, but I still didn't answer. A rough sigh echoed.

"That's it. I'm-"

"OKAY!" I exclaimed as I shot up and pushed the blanket away, "I took it!"

I watched his entire face twitch as I pulled the right side back up onto my shoulder, seeing that it was too big for my small frame. As my predicament became more noticeable to me, a light blush surfaced.

"O-Okay…" Zoro cleared his throat as he spoke, "W-Well, d-do you need some o-other clothes?"

My face was gradually becoming more and more beat colored as I swallowed my nervously watering mouth clenching.

"I'll just go g-get N-Nami then…" Zoro said as he turned and began exiting out of my room.

"NO!" I lunged forward and gripped his shoulder.

"I have clothes of my own!"

My face brightened even more as I saw both Madeline and Sanji standing outside of the kitchen watching the entire scene.

--

I blinked a few times as Sanji and I watched everything unfold and my eyes widened slightly as I saw that "Nira's" shirt had dropped to the floor. I gulped. My heart started to race in panic as I quickly turned to Sanji who had gotten a request from Nami and wasn't paying a lick of attention. I grabbed his shoulders as nicely as I could.

"Kitchen please!" I demanded gently while I pushed him slightly into the kitchen and shut the door behind him.

Luckily he hadn't taken notice, or at least… I don't think he did.

--

"Back up slowly," she whispered, "And shut the door. And don't you dare turn around."

Zoro nodded to her and did as he was told. The swordsman's face had a slightly red tint painted over his face at how "lively" this morning had been so far. Suddenly Nira's head poked out of her door.

"Oi, Madeline!" she somewhat whispered.

"Coming!" the red head sang as she straightened herself up and trotted over, "How can I help you?"

"My stuff is in your room!" Nira stated.

Madeline's face twisted up slightly into an odd expression as she heard what her friend told her. Her slim hands clamped onto her hips.

"And what good are they gonna do you in my room?"

"I don't know!" she said back in frustration, "I just need them before Nami gets to me!"

"Alright. Alright." Madeline sighed as she turned to retrieve the clothes and came back out just as quick. She tossed it to her unenthusiastically. "There you go."

Nira caught the bag with one arm and quickly retreated to the inside. Madeline's eyes rolled in her sockets as she went back to the kitchen.

--

"I'm sorry about shoving you in here like that…"

Sanji looked up from the stove at me and smiled extremely wide.

"It's fine," he said back, "Don't you worry about it."

I laughed at how… forgiving he was when it came to a lady. It was just so funny!

"Are they done yet?" I asked while leaning over his shoulder after trotting over to him.

"They should be," he replied as he turned his head to look at me. A sweet smile showed up on his face and he nudged his head upwards, motioning me over to a place on the counter where some pot holders were. "Just get one of those." His smile became wider and his voice shifted into sounding love-struck. "I don't need you getting burned."

A light blush surfaced onto my cheeks. He was able to flatter me without really even trying and that was embarrassing, but I can't help but love it!

"Thank you for your concern," I said back with a light giggle while placing the pot holder over my hand.

I walked over to the stove/oven, reached in, and pulled out a cookie sheet with a fresh batch of my homemade doughnuts. I smiled. I've always loved making these. As I stood up straight I looked around for something to set them on and to my dismay, I had not thought about that until now.

An embarrassed laugh came out of my chest.

"I should have gotten a platter first…" I mumbled.

Sanji laughed at my realization and set down the pan and bottle of oil he had.

"Let me get one for you." He reached up into a cabinet behind him and pulled out a medium sized, metallic food platter that was giving off a bright glare as the sunlight reflected off of it. "There you are, Miss Madeline," he cooed while setting it in front of me.

I gave in to another flattered giggle and tilted the metal sheet to a forty-five degree angle and pushed the pastries gently off, unfortunately my kitchen companion moved a little too quickly.

My hand stung as the hot surface of the cookie sheet collided with the skin of my palm. My four front teeth bit my bottom lip in an, amazingly, successful attempt to keep from crying out in pain and my hand released the scalding tool immediately. Curse my reflexes…

"Madeline!" Sanji wailed as he quickly rushed over to my side and held my wrist away from any other kind of harm.

I did my best to smile reassuringly as he moved me over to the counter.

I had my non-injured hand holding my wrist, trying to keep it still. Sanji quickly walked over to the sink, grabbed a rag, and piled ice onto it. As he came back, he folded up the sides of it, making it look like a carrying sack. My jaw clenched while he set the cold cloth on top of it and a hissing sound emitted as I sucked in a breath.

"Oh Madeline! I am so sorry!" he apologized with concern oozing from his voice.

My right eye shut as the ice filled cloth completely sat on top of my hand and I whimpered in pain and relief.

"I… It's okay," I said, struggling with keeping the smile, "I'm fine. I've had worse."

His visible eye had a guilty sheen over it as he hurried over to an emergency First Aid Kit that Chopper had put together and quickly pulled out a roll of gauze. My hand pounded on the counter lightly as he wrapped up my burn wound, which still stung.

"I'm so incredibly sorry," he said while tying the two ends of the bandages in a knot to where it wouldn't unravel.

"Don't worry about it," I said back trying to calm him down and show him that I forgave him, but my attention moved to the literally stretched arm that was slinking over to the platter of doughnuts sitting on the table.

My brown eyes flashed. My arm whipped over to the holding cylinder and gripped onto the handle of a very nice feeling wooden spoon. I turned on my heel in a speedy spin and brought my arm that held the wooden spoon straight down, making a loud slap as the rounded end collided with the hand below it.

"AIEEEE!!" Luffy cried from outside of the kitchen.

I smiled in satisfaction and then more in embarrassment yet again as I saw that we, Sanji and I, have had an audience.

"Serves you right!" Zoro bellowed after busting out into a laugh and exiting the kitchen to go to some other part of the ship, for a nap no doubt.

The harsh look that I had died down to a stern gaze.

"Did I say you could have one, Rubber Band Man?" I asked as the arm started to lose its tension.

His hand twitched, making an attempt to move out of the hold I had on it, but I wasn't going to let that happen. I dug the spoon diagonally down more, causing the hand to stretch out and then freeze. Luffy walked in, his eyes big and sad.

"Ow! Let go!" he whined.

I released some of the pressure, but didn't let go completely.

"You apologize first," I told him sounding a lot like a mother.

"I'm sorry," he said with a sniffle.

I smiled in satisfaction and took the spoon off of his hand, letting it snap back to his shoulder. My eyes stayed stern, but I had a gentle smile. I pointed to the platter of doughnuts on the table with the end of the utensil I had.

"Now you can have one."

"Thank you!" he said with a big grin. His arm stretched out again and, to my and everyone else's amazement, he grabbed one and only one.

As he bounded off a growling stomach reached my ears. A very small smile showed and my eyes traveled over to my friend who was sitting in the corner observing everything.

"Would you like one too?" I asked. Her eyes brightened up more and she nodded, practically drooling over the chance of her finally getting one. "Well…" I said, "Since I did make them for you I guess you can have at least two."

A wide grin came up onto her face and she shot up.

"THANK YOU!" she exclaimed, lunging at me for a hug.

I stumbled back as her arms embraced my shoulders and a laugh was squeezed out of me.

"You're welcome," I said while she let go and rushed over to the pastries. A smile appeared on my face as I watched her take a bite out of one of the two she grabbed and then I looked to Sanji who seemed extremely upset. "And thank you as well."

His head perked up in surprise and stayed like that for a few moments, but then looked away in guilty shame. He muttered something about him being the cause of my injury and how it was an insult for me to forgive him that quickly for doing it or something like that…

I laughed.

"Well, if it wasn't for you 'freaking' out about it I probably would have kept going without doing anything about it," I told him while adding the quotations around "freaking".

He went to say something in reply, but Nira spoke up first.

"Oi, oi, Linguini Garcon. Quit blaming yourself," she said, saying our inside nickname for him, "It was an accident."

My non-injured hand went over my mouth to keep my laugh to a light giggle while Sanji's attention turned to her. He blinked in confusion and slight curiosity.

"Did you just call me…" He paused as he translated the French words quickly. "Noodle… boy?"

Nira nodded as she stuffed the last bit of the second doughnut she had in her mouth. I let the gentle laugh out, watching Sanji's face become more confused.

"But…"

--

"Inside joke," Madeline told him while slinging her arm around his shoulders. A faint tint of red appeared over her cheeks as he looked over to her. "Besides, I think it's a cute name. It fits you."

The blonde's eye lit up incredibly. Pretty much only hearing the word "cute" and sensing that her arm was around his shoulders, a huge grin slammed onto his face and a large, glistening heart pulsed in his eye. Nira laughed at the sight of him going "gaga" over her friend just by having her arm over his shoulders and saying that she thought the name was cute, but she stopped soon after as her stomach growled yet again.

"Would you like another one?" Madeline asked, looking away from the cook beside her still with a red color over her face and a flattered smile.

Nira shook her head while visibly drooling again. Madeline chuckled and gently tossed one to her. The teal haired girl literally caught it with her mouth, but sensed there was someone behind her and hey, she was right.

Her chair scooted about three feet away from the swordsman and she pointed while catching the doughnut that fell from her mouth in the other hand.

"He's sleepwalking!" she stated loudly.

Madeline blinked, still hanging off Sanji, but soon removed her arm from his collar bone, much to his sadness and quietly approached the sleeping man. Once she had gotten to being two feet away his light snoring stopped as did she and then the quiet complaint of his stomach sounded. Madeline gave a small smirk.

"If you want one, you gotta wake up first," she told him, as if he would wake up after she finished, while walking over to the platter.

Nira gasped and suddenly Zoro's eyes fluttered open as he came to.

"Huh? What's going on?" he asked, clueless as to why he was in there.

"No way!" Nira protested to Madeline's earlier statement, "Those are mine!"

The female captain smiled and pick up one.

"Play nice, Nira," she said as she flicked her wrist, releasing it in her friend's direction.

She growled, but caught the air borne food and then snapped her arm over to Zoro. Her expression was extremely sour as he took it from her.

"Thank… you?" he said while inspecting it and also being very unsure as to if he should eat it if she was acting like this.

Nira grunted in reply and then stomped over to the doughnuts, took one, went over to a far chair, and then started eating. Zoro looked over to the pair standing there silently watching with questioning face.

"Oh, she's just being sore about having to share," said Madeline with a chuckle, "She usually doesn't have to."

"Ah…" He sat down in a near by chair and took a bite of the home-made pastry and he stopped suddenly after swallowing. He looked down at it and then back at her. "These are seriously good!"

"You really think so?" she asked while leaning on the counter.

Zoro nodded and went to say another compliment, but Sanji, being the lover of women and of flattery that he was, interjected.

"But of course Captain Madeline!" he sang while swooning over to her side, "They were made by such a lovely lady! So why in the world wouldn't they be?"

The red head laughed lightly, with the blush returning to her face thanks to Sanji's words and one of her hands went up to a small bunch of her red hair.

"Thank you." She looked over to a wall and paused. "And that's a home recipe…" she muttered while twirling and switching the red strands of hair around her index and middle finger.

"It's still good," he said then swallowing the mouthful he had. He reached for another, but stopped abruptly when he heard a growl.

"Nira," groaned Madeline while rolling her eyes then motioning to the five that were on the dish, "There's still enough left. And if you want more I can make some…" She then bent backwards to look at Sanji and she smiled. "As long as Sanji will let me of course."

"Oh certainly!" he confirmed with a grin as a reply to her smile, "My kitchen is always open to your use!"

Both Nira and Madeline laughed at his words while Zoro chomped on a doughnut ignoring the people around him. Nira looked to Madeline, snapped her fingers to get her attention, which worked, and slightly wiggled her finger. Her childish friend laughed harder at the gesture, but it came at a price. Losing her concentration on staying balanced in that position and plunging to the floor was it. Nira jumped up, shoving her chair four inches behind her as she did, along with Zoro who, somehow, made his way over to her side and was bent down and Sanji who hopped the counter and was at her side as well.

"Are you alright, Madeline?!" Sanji asked with concern dripping from his words.

"Yeah. Are you alright, klutz?" Zoro repeated.

The young woman laughed lightly and looked at each face in the room.

"Guess that wasn't too smooth on my part, was it?"

Laughing, Zoro stood up straight.

"First, the net and now this?" he said while staring down at her, "Wonder what else you can do…"

Madeline's face sunk.

"The net was not my fault…!" she whined, sounding like a small child.

"Sure…"

Suddenly Nira smacked the back of his head.

"Stop being rude," she demanded while walking up to Madeline and pulling her up onto her feet. Zoro growled and glared at her back side as he rubbed his cranium. "Come on. I'm going to redo that bandage job."

"But…" she mumbled while looking to Sanji.

"Sorry Sanji, but I have to."

The blonde sighed and shook his head, encouraging her to fix his quick first aid job. She nodded and then went to leading her friend to Chopper's office. A sigh was released as she quickly shut the door after they both entered the room.

"We need to talk…" Nira said in a low voice.

"O… Okay…" Madeline said, seeing that she was serious.

Nira looked up and locked her green, shimmering eyes with Madeline's glittering, chocolate brown ones and took a few steps toward her.

"Madeline…" She gulped as she paused, but forced herself to speak. "Are you my captain or what?"

Madeline's jaw clenched as she uttered the question with a very straight face and looked down. She nodded.

"I understand…" she replied. She paused as well and then looked up. "And, you bet that I am."

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!_**

_11th chapter is finally up and running!! Oh finally... But anyways. I hope you enjoyed it. The next one is in the process of being written!! Please keep reviewing!! It's encouragement for me!!_

_-Love Maruri_


	12. Let's Play a Game

"MAH-DEH-LINE!" rang Luffy's loud voice though out the salty sea air that surrounded the ship.

I blinked sort of cluelessly as I turned my body from the waist up around and there he was, quickly bounding up to me in a happy manner.

"What is it Luff-LUFFY!" I practically leaped off of the wooden railing I was sitting on while he came to a screeching halt in front of me.

A bored and also playful shine was visible in his eyes as he stared at me. I wasn't exactly sitting on the railing now. It was more like leaning and Luffy was excitedly waiting for me to become comfortable again.

"Madeline, wanna play Hide and Seek?" he asked while bouncing up and down on his heels anxiously.

"Uh… Sure?" I replied with a questioning voice. I didn't quite understand what he had just said, but I assumed it had something to do with a game and as it would seem, I was correct.

"Okay!" the boy exclaimed. He smiled wide and pointed at me. "You count to twenty and I'll hide. And no peeking!"

'Knew it…' I said inwardly.

"Alright!" I told him with a smile that almost rivaled his. "Almost" being the operative word. I took off my hat and placed my face into the inner lining. "One…" The slapping sound of his flip-flop like shoes bounded off. "Two… Three…"

--

A smile of amusement came onto my face as I watched this cook. He was preparing a large tray of an assortment of finger foods like no one had ever seen and not to mention he was doing it so quickly.

"All I asked for was a sandwich, silly," I said with a small chuckle. He looked up from the tray and gave me a wide smile.

"I know, but why just make one when I have to feed the rest of this crew?"

I laughed a bit harder seeing him prove his actions so fast. Then something strange rang through the air…

"Nineteen… TWENTY! READY OR NOT! HERE I COOOOME!!" echoed Madeline's extremely loud voice.

"Oh dear…" I moaned, "What in the world is she doing now?"

My head turned to the door as the sound of very quick footsteps approached the door and my red headed friend skidded to a stop in the door way. Her hair messed up even more as she snapped her head around, obviously looking for something.

"Have either of you seen Luffy?" she asked with a little bit of heavy breathing.

Both Sanji and I shook our heads in a negative motion and hers fell in disappointment.

"Damn…" she cursed under her breath, but her head came right back up, "Watch this for me please!" She grabbed a handful of the hat she wore and easily tossed it like a frisbee onto the counter as she ran off.

After her footsteps faded, I stood up suddenly and acted on an impulse. Reaching out, I took the hat into my hands and held it to me, almost possessively, which earned an odd look from the blonde chef.

"What?"

--

"She did say to watch it…"

And just a few moments later, the bright red head came waltzing in at a casual, but quick pace. Sanji's odd expression turned to one of curiosity with a small hint of lust as Madeline slipped behind the counter and took a seat beside him.

"And what, may I ask, are you doing~?" he asked, his voice ringing with "love" of the fact that she was there.

"Shhh," she hissed her finger on top of her lips in the universal "Be quiet" sign, "I'm not really here."

Sanji chuckled at her as she pulled her legs up to her chest while she smiled up at him. He moved around to her left side while pulling the platter of finger foods with him and suddenly Luffy came to a screeching stop in the door frame just as Madeline had done.

"Where did she go?" he asked while, again doing exactly what Madeline had before, snapping his head around.

"Where'd who go?" Sanji asked back, humoring Madeline and giving him a look that said he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, though it was completely false.

"The other captain!"

Then Sanji's eye flared and sunk into a glare. "The other captain" had a name didn't she?!

"She has a name, Luffy!" he growled.

"But I'm gonna lose if I don't find her!" he said, completely ignoring Sanji's scolding for being rude. After about three seconds of looking frantically he became impatient and bounded off.

Shaking his head while releasing a frustrated sigh to relieve himself of the short temper that had been set off, Sanji leaned onto the counter top.

"I can't believe him…" he rumbled in a low voice.

"I can," said Zoro who exposed the two both of theirs oppositional personalities.

"Hush up, shitty marimo," Sanji said back while looking over to the swordsman. Zoro went to spit out and aggressive reply, but, yet again, Nira was the one to make it halt. Sanji smiled at it and had his attention go back to the young lady sitting at the table. "You can eat now if you would like," he told her as he pushed the plate forward slightly.

Nira nodded affirmatively, quickly standing from her seat, bounding up to the front of the counter, jumping over it, and landing on her friend's right side.

Madeline, apparently not ready for Nira's speedy descent or her loud landing beside her, yelped mostly inwardly and scooted to her left in a retreat while latching onto Sanji's legs, feeling as though she needed to hold onto something as a form of protection. Her "savoir" didn't even budge from the clinging hold, but, as usual, the wide grin that he always got when she, or any other woman for that matter, held onto him slammed on his face. Realization that she had clung onto the cook came to her and a bright blush lit up her face. Nira laughed at her as she swiftly released him from the hold and looked down. She thanked Sanji as she took the sandwich he offered her while bending down a bit.

"It's okay," she told her as she patted Madeline's back and then going into a whisper, "I need to talk to you later…" She then stood back up and pointed at Zoro while taking a bite of her food. "Need to talk to you now."

Zoro started to question her demand and refuse, but she grabbed onto his wrist and dragged him out behind her much too quickly with him struggling against it.

Then, just as the door shut, Nira's voice rang out for some unknown reason and then Luffy came back into the kitchen with tears in his eyes.

"She yelled at me…" he whimpered while looking like he was about to cry.

"Awww!" cooed Madeline's voice as she shot up from her spot behind the counter, completely forgetting that she was hiding from him, "Poor Luffy!"

At the sight of the other captain, Luffy did his best to straighten out his posture to make him look manlier, but his attempt failed.

"Your friend is mean!" his voice whined as she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she apologized with a smile," She's always been like that."

"Okay…" he said accepting her reason, "Oh, and I win."

Madeline blinked cluelessly, seeing as though she had forgotten about the game, but it all returned and a smile of good sportsmanship appeared on her face.

"Yeah… I guess you do, huh?"

A wide grin came onto his features and then his short attention span, one of the things him and her had in common, went to his stomach.

"SANJI!" he screamed, luckily not in such a loud voice it would blow out the ear drum of his female friend who still had her arms slung around his upper body in a hug, "I'm hungry!"

His cook's face sunk and his eyes closed as a low growl came up from his chest.

"Luffy… I CAN-"

"Actually…" spoke Madeline as she set her hand on her abdomen, "Now that you mention it, so am I…"

Sanji stopped abruptly in the middle of his appalled scolding and he quickly changed demeanors.

"Alrighty then!" he said while sliding over to a cabinet, pulling out two plates, and then preparing them with some food he had made earlier.

Madeline giggled lightly after removing her other arm from Luffy's shoulders and him; he just kept a wide grin while he took a seat at the table with her following his lead.

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!_**

_I hope that this chapter was entertaining to you. I know it took forever to get out and all and I apologize for that AND I apologize for how short it is compared to all of the others... But oh well I guess. Please review and tell me what you thought!!! I would appreciate it!!  
_

_-Love Maruri_


	13. The Choice

"Alright Zoro," I started after the kitchen door closed completely and I looked to the wooden planks below my feet, "I want to ask you this nicely first…" Then my head came snapping back up. "Would you…" I struggled with uttering my next word, "Please show me to the weight room, that I KNOW you have?" I had to emphasize the "I KNOW" seeing that he thought he could fool me.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked back, staring at me as if I was some crazy loon.

"Oh don't you 'what the hell' me!" I said back while raising my voice, "You don't get bulging muscles like that by sitting around and doing nothing except sleeping!"

Zoro's jaw then practically slammed down onto the ground at my "ludicrous" accusation.

"I do not just sleep!" he yelled back while moving in towards my face with a noticeable anger vein showing up onto his forehead.

"Cha! That's what it sure looks like!" I retorted, moving in as well, "And if that's not true then prove to me that it's not!"

"Fine then!" he screamed back.

He then roughly pushed past me in a rude manner, stomping across the deck with imaginary steam fuming from his ears and nose like a train. I watched him with an offended and completely disgusted expression as he moved around a corner and as he disappeared I gave a smug smile to myself, the ship, and the scenery surrounding me. How easy it was to be able to read a man like him. You anger him and insult him and VOILA! He's easy to manipulate.

"Slow down, swords man," I said with a very snide tone as I followed, "I don't feel like walking that fast."

"OH FUCK YOU!!" he barked.

"I'd rather not," I replied while catching up, "And you really shouldn't talk like that to a lady…"

--

I started laughing as I heard the argument between the Strawhat swordsman and my doctor when Luffy bolted out of the kitchen after finishing his plate. She always did know how to bend someone to her preferences and I, having the attention span of a squirrel at times, wasn't pay a lick of attention to the knife in my hand or how close it was to my other one.

"MADELINE!!" exclaimed Sanji, snapping me back to my original occupation by quickly gripping the wrist of my hand that was holding the vegetable onto the cutting board.

My eyelids blinked quickly as I looked at the wooden board that the knife had stuck into and an embarrassed smile crawled up onto my face.

"Well crap…" I said while laughing lightly at my obvious lack of professionalism with kitchen ware, "I could've just cut my finger off, huh?"

Sanji's upper body relaxed in relief as a heavy sigh escaped from within his lungs with the sound of the words "Oh my god." I giggled as I felt his forehead set down on my shoulder in an attempt to relax some more and probably something more, but I couldn't really care!

"Would you like me to take a little break, Sanji-san?" I asked, making my voice sound very sweet to where he would know that I was just fine. His head came up and he gave me a look that helped register to my mind that he didn't have the heart to TELL me yes. I giggled again. "I will then, so you won't have to worry about me getting hurt."

I shifted from under his weight causing him to let go of my wrist and remove his forehead from my shoulder and slipped into a chair at the table. As I set my elbows on the table I became suddenly bored, a very bad trait of mine, and my eyes then rolled around in their sockets, looking around the kitchen. Sanji had taken over my previous job and was diligently chopping the greens set out before him.

Then a question that pertained to almost nothing except food popped into my mind.

"'Ey, Sanji…" I started.

"Hm?" he hummed while turning his head to the side slightly, angling his ear to signal that he acknowledged me.

I opened my mouth to ask the question I had, but a feminine scream rang through out every bit of air that surrounded this ship. My head perked up, looked to the door, and then to Sanji who became responsive to it as well. His curly-cue eyebrow cocked in a questioning manner and I shrugged in reply.

"Hold that thought," he told me while setting the knife down on the wooden board before him. As he turned completely away from the cutting board and started to take steps towards the closed door I tensed. "Let me go see if everything's alri–"

"NO!" I said suddenly with my arms stretched out to my sides in an attempt to block him from exiting even though I was nowhere near him. "I think everything's just fine."

His expression transformed into one of being unsure and a hesitant smile came onto my features. I was able to tell that the scream originated from Nira, seeing that her voice was pretty unmistakable and I knew that she was with Zoro which in turn meant that her scream might get him in some trouble with the cook.

"How do you know?" he asked.

A wide smile came up onto my face.

"Just a gut feeling."

--

"SHHH!!" Zoro hissed from between his teeth while he held his hand over her mouth to keep her from wailing much more, "Do you have any idea as to what that shitty Ero-Cook would do if he thought I had done something to you?!" Nira shook her head no in reply to it and an aggressive sigh was let out of his upper body. He started to go into this whole list of thing that was very lengthy of the extreme things he would have done if Sanji had thought that something was amiss and then released her mouth from his hold. "And that's why you can't just scream like that unless something really is wrong."

"O-Oi," came Usopp's shaky voice from up above in the crow's nest, "Is e-everything alright? I heard screaming…"

"Yes, Usopp," Zoro said back while looking up with a gaze of irritation, "Everything's perfectly fine."

The young girl standing in front of him took a small smirk onto her face as Zoro came back to look at her after the sniper disappeared back into the safety of the circular lookout point. His features showed he had become even angrier with that and his teeth gritted against one another.

"What?" he growled from deep within his chest.

"Seems that we have two spineless jellyfish here," she stated with a mocking tone.

Zoro's eyes showed curiosity at the "two" she was referring to and he had to ask "Who the hell are you talking about?" and her smirk got even wider.

"Well…" she began, "there is Pinocchio and…" She allowed her eyes to look around before bringing them back to him and they glinted with a sparkle of wanting to mess with him even more. "You." She poked him on the nose before swiftly moving around his shoulder over to the room that he had lead her to and shut the door in his face.

He blinked cluelessly at her for a few moments, not even realizing what she had just done, processing why he would be considered a "spineless jellyfish" and he got it of course.

"I am not afraid of that stupid Ero-Cook…" he mumbled while turning to the closed door, still not seeing that it had been closed on him. He then looked to it and it dawned on him that he had been shut out of the room. "HEY!" he whined while banging on the wooden slab, "Open the friggin' door!"

--

"So, Captain Madeline," started Sanji who was back at the cutting board chopping up the last of the veggies he had. The giggle from the young red head sitting at the table caught his attention and he looked at her from the corner of his eye. She was smiling with a flattered tint of red over her cheeks and he could read that easily. She enjoyed it when he, and most likely anyone else except for Nira, addressed her as that. "What were you going to ask?"

"Well…" she trailed, "I was gonna ask…" Her expression then went to one of thought and her gaze went to the table. She started messing with the silverware that had been left there from her and Luffy's earlier meal while she thought of the best way to word the question. "If you were any flavor in the world, what would you be?"

Suddenly the blade of the knife he was using sliced right through the skin on top of his middle finger with blood quickly pushing up to the open wound soon after and him, all he did was jerk his hand back quickly and acted like nothing had happened while setting the knife down calmly and walking over to the sink to wash it out.

Madeline looked over wondering what had just happened and her eyes widened as she saw a small stream of crimson running down with the water that was falling over his finger. She shot up out of her chair and rushed like nobodies business over to his side to make sure that nothing major had happened to him.

"Holy crap..." she said with relief in her voice that she hadn't caused him to hack off his finger, but her head hung in shame anyways, "I am so sorry, Sanji-san…"

He adjusted his body's position to where he could look at her completely and a cute smile was what he returned to her.

"A cut like this won't affect me, Madeline," he told her with kind tone in his voice while turning off the water and then reaching for the first aid kit, but his attention was quickly diverted to the person who peered in from the kitchen door.

"Cook-san," said Robin from the door way, "Navigator-san, Doctor-san, and I have returned from the town."

Sanji held onto the metal box of medical supplies as he turned to the older woman and waved to her.

"Robin-chwan!" he sung happily, "You have returned!"

She laughed and nodded to the girl-crazy male, but stopped as she saw that Madeline had been in there accompanying him with the kitchen work. A smile graced her features and she started to turn away.

"I'll leave you two to your business," she told them as the door shut.

"Alright!" he cooed and then turned back to the counter to get started on wrapping up his finger. After about a minute, Sanji had finished up bandaging it and was back at the wooden plank, chopping the small bit of the plant he had left. He then noticed the guiltiness that Madeline radiated as she sat back down in her chair. "Don't worry about the cut," he said, "It's nothing. I was just caught off guard is all."

She sighed in defeat, seeing that she wouldn't be able to argue with him about her feeling bad and stared at his back side.

"Alright. Alright," she said as she set part of her chin and most of her cheek in her hand while she put her elbow on the table, "And you still haven't answered the question."

He chuckled at her pushiness to get an answer out of him and he tilted his head upwards some in thought.

"Hmmm…" he rumbled quietly and slowed his chopping speed. His eyes went to Madeline again and he laughed a little bit more as he observed the interest in her brown eyes. "Probably strawberry," he replied.

A wide smile formed on her face as she laughed at the comparison between him and the bright red fruit.

"Very sweet, but can be sour," she said out loud still with a laugh.

"And what about you?" he asked back, wanting an answer from her as well, "What would you be?"

The captain adjusted the barrette on her head and leaned back in her chair, causing the two front legs to be elevated up off of the floor as she too went to think what she would be.

"Mm… If I was any flavor… what would I be…" she asked herself while starting to rock back in forth in the unstable chair. "Cherry," she said confidently while Sanji turned to her, "Different varieties, but usually always sweet."

--

Sanji laughed as I returned the chair back to its normal position and pushed it outwards a bit.

"Is there anything I can do to assist?" I asked while starting to stand up, hoping that he would give me something to do to make up for my earlier mess up.

"Mm-hm," he buzzed from between his lips, "Dinner is almost ready, so would you mind going around and letting everyone know?"

I nodded my head in an affirmative and rapid motion as I verbally spoke "Sure!" and bounded out of the kitchen door to the deck. As I rushed out and around a corner, expecting to run into someone sooner or later, I almost literally did.

"Oh!" Usopp yelped as we both stumbled backwards after our near collision, "Madeline. I didn't even see you come around the corner…"

I chuckled as I stood up straight and readjusted my shirt on my upper body seeing that it had gotten twisted up.

"It's fine Usopp," I told him with a smile and then motioned to the kitchen, "Dinner's almost ready."

"Okay!" he said back while making a quick swipe down with his head, "I'll be there in a minute. I just have to finish up my latest and greatest invention!" He stood with a proud stance with his head tilted up slightly and he took in a breath of the oxygen. "Ooo!" he hooted as he brought his gaze back to me, "It smells seriously good!"

I grinned back at him as he waved to me in a "See you later" way and disappeared around the corner I had. He was, in actuality, a very cute young man, or at least he was in my opinion. The way he acted gave him that cutesy trait that little, innocent children have and it was so amusing, but I digress.

As I thought of the others I had to inform, the stairs that led to the upper deck seemed to be calling me.

'I guess that's where I'm going next,' I told myself.

Quickly bouncing up the multiple steps of the stair way, the two Strawhat females came into my view. From my point of view, Nami was just a bit engrossed in her magazine seeing that all you could really see was the very top of her orange haired head and Robin seemed to be very interested in the book she was reading.

"Excuse me ladies," I said very politely while knocking my knuckles on the railing beside me. The both of them looked up from their reading material with eyes of wonder. "I've been sent to deliver the message that dinner is just about ready."

"Oh," said Nami while bringing her magazine down some more, "Alright. We'll be there soon."

"Yes. Thank you for telling us, Madeline," Robin added with a smile.

A small smile showed on my face as they started to get up from their seats and straighten up the area around them and while I turned from them and started back down the stairs, I wondered if I should call for him… Ah! What the hell. Sanji did tell me to get the message to everyone.

"LUFFY!" I beckoned in a loud voice, but not so loud that it shook the walls or anything like that, and, as he always did, Luffy came lunging to me from the head of Merry.

"What's up?" he asked while catching the straw hat that came flying off of his head as he had come and hovered in the air until he grabbed it.

"Just thought I'd be nice and let you know that dinner's oh so close to being ready," I told him sweetly, not being able to hold back my preying on his insatiable hunger for even a second and just like I had expected from this very wonderful captain, his eyes expanded showing a glaze of hunger over them and drool came moving over his bottom lip.

"WOO HOO!" he yelled out, "Finally!! I'm starving!"

My hands then went to my hips while inwardly laughing at him as he speeded off to the kitchen where he would most likely be scolded for, pretty much, being himself and after a few seconds of watching him run off one of my hands came up and I started listing everyone that I had gotten.

"Nami, Robin, Usopp, Luffy… And I don't need to get Sanji, so that leaves me… Oh!" My middle finger and thumb rushed past each other. "Chopper!" I stated and jogged over to his office. Once I got there, the back of my fist was what I used to knock. "Chopper?"

"Ah! Don't come in, please!" squealed his kid like voice as the sound of things falling reached my ears.

Apparently I had interrupted something.

"Oh! I apologize, Chopper!" I said while leaning onto the door as if I thought that I could help by getting closer to it, "I just thought that I would come to tell you dinner's ready."

"Okay…" he replied with a voice full of sadness, probably about the fact that whatever he was working on had just been messed up.

I sighed heavily seeing that I was the cause of it, but knew that he had forgiven me since it was an accident, and then that feeling of being the cause was pushed down as my hand came up once again and started to count who I had gotten out of the nine people on this ship.

"Usopp." One. "Chopper." Two. "Nami." Three. "Robin." Four. "Luffy." Five. "Sanji and then there's me…" Six and seven. "So that leaves… Oh yeah!" Nira and Zoro were the only ones that were left, but… "I don't even know where those two are…"

And then suddenly…

"Oh come on! Is that really all you can do?!"

I looked to a door that was about fifteen feet away from me which seemed to be the point of origin of the antagonizing remark which was obviously from my good friend. A large breath was squeezed out of my diaphragm was I fast-walked over to it and the floor boards under my feet rattled as a crashing sound permeated the wall. I blinked cluelessly, but knocked on the door anyways.

"Oi! Oi! Dinner's ready!!" I yelled to them, having a very good idea of what they were doing. If I was correct, they were having a "fight" to test the other's abilities and I knew that since Nira liked to do that with me at least twice a month, but even though I knew it was that, leaving the chance to take advantage of the fact that they were in a room alone together wide open for me was just to good to pass up. "So you two kiss and make up and get your asses to the kitchen!"

"Oh just shut up!" screamed Nira from inside after the crashing, breaking, and slamming sounds ceased, "We'll be there!"

A smirk arrived on my features while I turned away and headed back for the kitchen. It actually didn't take very long to get everyone informed which I hadn't expected, but I wasn't complaining. My peach colored sandals tapped lightly across the deck as I approached the place of an apparent conflict where Luffy was attempting to swallow down one of his crew mate's food.

"LUFFY!" screamed Usopp who I saw trying to block his captain away from his plate as I entered quietly, "You have your own plate you know!"

"Yeah! But yours looks better!" he whined, reaching farther to where he could reach his marksman's plate, but he was quickly stopped by being knocked out of his chair roughly by the long stretched out leg that extended from the other side of the table.

"EAT YOUR OWN FOOD!" Sanji demanded in a tone that was as gritty as sand paper while he retracted his leg and returned it to the ground.

I started laughing at the sight of Luffy recovering from the beating and Usopp wolfing down his food and then I saw the blonde pull out a chair from the other side of him, seeing that he was done handing out the plates, and motioned me over to take a seat beside him. And of course I accepted graciously, not being able to turn down such a gentlemanly gesture, pretty much because of the fact that it was him offering.

"Did so! And you know it!"

"No you did not!"

I sighed heavily with a smile and a small laugh as both Nira and Zoro came walking into the kitchen arguing about who had won.

--

"So…" trailed Madeline as she pushed two chairs out from under the table on the other side with her feet, "Did you two kiss and make-up?"

Nira's green eyes narrowed at her friend as she and her competitor took the seats that she had offered.

"You shut your mouth," she hissed while looking at her plate. Nira stopped and studied her food. It seemed familiar to her, but smelled so much better. "Sanji… What is this?"

"Saltwater catfish cooked in a pepper spice along with a simple salad," he answered and then he saw the expression on her face which made him a little worried. Did she not like that? Had he picked something distasteful to her? "Is that alright?"

The teal haired girl looked up and stared at Madeline.

"Isn't that the recipe I gave you?" she mouthed.

Madeline gave a cute smile and nodded. Nira's irises dulled in a sign of submission. As it seemed to her, there was almost nothing that Madeline wouldn't give to him. ALMOST being the operative word.

She mouthed back, "I bet it's better than when you tried to cook it."

"Well of course," Madeline said out loud, not caring about the attention she brought to herself and Nira and motioned to the blonde beside her, "He is a professional after all."

The female doctor shook her head in aggravation with her captain, but accepted the answer anyways, as she always did, and dinner went on as usual since they had arrived. Small talk and large conversations carried out between each one of them with Madeline and Luffy laughing about something that everyone started laughing at because they were, Nira arguing with Zoro or glaring at Usopp because he some how said something that offended her in someway, Robin, Nami and Chopper observed with amused faces and also joined in with them every once in a while to keep things interesting, and Sanji fawning over the four women in the room.

"Ahhh…" Madeline sighed while getting up and putting her very close to clean plate by the sink, "I feel sleepy now…"

"You're always like that," Nira said back while wiping off her mouth.

"Well I can't help that," she replied with that smile of hers as she headed for the door.

"Oh!" Sanji squeaked as he looked over to the door that started to open while picking up Nira's plate from in front of her, "Are you turning in this early?"

"'Fraid so, Sanji-san."

He sighed heavily, apparently down-hearted about it, but he gave a sweet smile none the less.

"Sleep well then, Captain Madeline!" he sung to her as she waved to everyone as she pushed through the door.

"Hold up," came Nira's voice as she too stood up from her seat and followed her friend's lead, "I'm comin' with. Night everyone."

A round of "Goodnights" and "See you tomorrows" came from them. Madeline entered her room and plopped down onto her bed, her hat falling off onto the pillow below as she relaxed. As Nira entered her room, the vibes that she gave off told the red head exactly what she was coming in to talk about.

"Madeline…" She paused. "It's now or never, you know that right?"

"Yeah," she replied very confidently while staring at the ceiling. It was a hard decision, but with their reputation, being here with them was a major risk for both crews. "And we both know what we've chosen…"

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!!_**

_Well, I apologize for it taking so long to get out and I hope that you've enjoyed this chapter. I did! Please review y'all!! I really appreciate it!! And I will do my best to get the next one out as soon as I can!! _

_-Love Maruri_


	14. Meet Aniki

**_WARNING! WARNING!! I'm not quite sure if it's considered a spoiler or not, but I'll warn anyway. If you have not watched the Water 7 Arch, there are some things in here, and possibly some of the upcoming chapters that you might consider spoilers. And as I said, i don't know if you would consider it as spoilers, but I'm just giving a fair warning._**

The wind swirled around the scrap-yard of the water capital of the world as a large group of people in odd uniforms marched towards the only building that was out there, heading away from the marine ship that had just recently ported. They were all closely packed together and their leader seemed to be having a tough time keeping the young lady that was slung over his shoulder still. She was thrashing around in his hold, violently kicking, screaming, and struggling with her red hair flailing about her face, as they walked on. Then a strong breeze whipped up and easily swept the brown barrette clear off her head and she froze suddenly, her chocolate eyes widening, and her ceasing in fighting only lasted a few moments until she started up again, but this time, it was for a different reason.

"AH!" she yelped while pulling the opposite way, "No!"

"Stop your struggling!" said the man who was carrying her. His spiky hair was being pulled by the conflicting directions and the head gear he was wearing didn't help any at all, though he apparently didn't know the cause of her crying out.

"NO! Please stop!" the girl pleaded, still attempting to go after it, "Please get my hat!"

Her companion's eyes followed the hat as it drifted through the air and landed about ten feet away from them, amazingly being avoided by every other person that was following, and she sighed while groaning "Crap" in the process. The teal haired female looked to the person carrying her very upset friend, and then went back to staring in front of her.

"Please go get it," she advised with an emotionless face, "She won't cooperate much without it." The wind blew once more and a bunch of her now shoulder blade length hair waved in front of her face and unfortunately for her, she had no way of relieving herself of the annoyance.

"Mozu!" the man said roughly while glaring at the girl, "Go get her hat will you, so she'll stop!"

The yellow bikini top and yellow capris wearing lady sighed and stepped away from her sister who was in a red bikini and both of their hair styles were identical, with it made up into large squares atop their heads.

"Alright. Alright, Zambai," she mumbled while walking over to it in a way that expressed that she didn't particularly care for the task, "What the…" She picked it up off the ground, quickly caught back up with them, and then started to approach Zambai's back side. "This ratty old thing?" she asked with a disgusted tone.

The on-foot captive's face distorted with anger as the strange woman harshly placed the hat on her captain's head, but kept quiet as to not anger anyone around although it wasn't something she was going to disregard so easily.

"Now will you finally shut up and stop?!" Zambai screeched, obviously fed up with her protests and whines.

She nodded and hummed in an affirmative intonation as she did her best to adjust her most prized possession back on her head.

"Now," started the large man in a gruff tone, "Tell us what your names are."

"I'm Nira," stated the teal colored girl, still with that emotionless voice of hers.

"And I'm Mad–" Suddenly the air that was in her stomach was forced out by her carrier's shoulder blade forcing its way up into her middle. "Eh… line," she finished with her upper body going limp, "Would you please set me down?" Zambai grunted the word "why" and she hesitated to answer. She really didn't want anger him anymore than she already had, but having the wind forced out of her like that wasn't very pleasant either. "Um… Because your shoulder–" And again, his shoulder dug up into her stomach as he walked over a large rock, pushing the oxygen out. "Is jamming into my abdomen…"

He growled to her and told her that there was no reason for her to. That she would be down on the ground soon enough and the both of them figured out why he had said what he did.

They had arrived.

The large doors loomed over them as everyone came to a stop and two of the even larger men in the group came up to their front sides and shoved. The doors slid open with little protest to their strength and a large room was exposed, showing many more members of this "social club" and the green, judging eyes of Nira's scanned over every single person.

"How many of you are there?" she asked with a surprised tone in her voice, though it was very slight.

"Doesn't matter to you," stated the red bikini wearing sister as she arrived at her side and then moved past her with a quick pace, "All you should worry about is what Aniki thinks of you."

"Well, I hope that we get to meet him soon," Nira replied with the character trait of impatience surfacing in her voice as well as in her face.

As they all entered the building in an "orderly" fashion with all of them condensing while the entrance of the building narrowed and then fanning out when it opened up again Zambai practically dropped his cargo on the ground. She did land on her feet, but…

--

I stumbled forward, thanks to me loosing my footing, tripped, and inevitably fell to the unforgiving ground below. While skidding slowly to a stop on the floor into a position to where I was laying out flat, the sound of the slimmer chains, chains slimmer than my own, that were coiled around my friend's limbs jingled with the movement that she had just done, most likely out of habit, to catch me from plunging downward, but unfortunately, it was to no avail. She was restrained to the point that she couldn't help me at all in this situation.

"Smooth… Real Smooth Madeline…" she said to me with a sigh, the tingling of the metal sounding again as she stood back up, "And seems you're going to have to get up on your own."

"Tha's iff I cunn…" I said back with a slight muffled accent seeing that I was planted face down on the pavement, but I was luckily able to get my head to bend up and look in front of me and what I saw made my heart sink. My hat had, yet again, fallen off of my head and was an antagonizing, and teasing four feet away from me. The expression I had shifted into one of sadness. "What is up with it always falling off now…?" I asked with a voice that was very close to that of one from a broken hearted little child.

Then, as very other person moved away, leaving the two of us out in the middle of the room, one of the square haired sisters actually kicked my hat closer to me. I wasn't quite sure whether they were being nice or taunting me, but I wasn't about to bank on the intentions of it because my treasured head ware was now within my very limited reach and I went after it. A smile came up onto my face as I quickly deleted the distance between it and I, but my joy was then snatched up by a large hand as it wrapped around it and scrunched it up. My brown eyes flashed in aggravation with this new person and I snapped my head up quickly.

"What the hell is… uhh… puh…" I trailed as I looked upon the large, towering, cloaked, and masked figure standing before me.

"Who the hell are you?" Nira bluntly asked from behind me.

And out of nowhere and from two different sides of the room…

"ANIKI!" called out the two twins as they approached this shrouded man's sides happily with the yellow tinted sunglasses wearing one on his right and the full, red bikini wearing one on his left.

My eyes started to well up some as I stared at the being who had stolen my hat. He had no right to do that! None what so ever, but I didn't have much of a chance to speak up just yet.

--

"Well, _'Franky'_," started Nira, apparently trying to see if she assumed the name right and since the man didn't go to correct her she took that as a sign that she was correct, "you look nothing like I had pictured."

"Hmph. Well I fool a lot of Marines," he answered from behind his mask while crossing his arms over his massive chest, still with the barrette in hand, and then sitting down on his "throne".

Nira's face became one of collected confusion, her features only moving slightly to show it as she looked around the room, searching for the ones he was referring to.

"I don't see any Marines…" she replied while turning her attention back to him as he shifted in his seat, his cool colored cloak crinkling under him as he did.

"On please," Franky grumbled, "Don't act like you two are stupid."

"Ohhhh," she began, understanding why he had called the two of them Marines and why he thought that they were, "You're talking about us!" It was all thanks to the boat that they had "borrowed". Nira opened her mouth to slam down his accusation, but as it seemed Madeline just couldn't stand the fact that her hat was in the hands of some stranger.

"Give me back my hat, you big bully!" she screamed, sounding much like a small kid, while attempting to move closer to him.

"'Big bully'?!" Mozu, the yellow bikini wearing one, yelled back.

Both of them took offense to the childish insult that was aimed at their "older brother" and both her and her sister took steps forward.

"Don't insult Ani–"

"Mozu. Kiwi," Franky interrupted, cutting Kiwi off and holding his arms out in front of them as to signal that he was handling it. He looked Madeline dead on, locking eyes with hers and he could tell that she was extremely displeased with the fact that he had taken the beaten up barrette so he stood up from his seat and went back in front of her like he was a few seconds before. He looked down on her. "And just why am I a 'big bully', huh?"

"You took my friggin' hat, man!" Madeline replied while, in the heat of the moment, pushing herself up onto her knees somehow, "And without a legit reason too!"

His arms crossed over his chest again as he scanned over her. Then, he looked to Nira who was, still, standing there emotionally though inside she was very unhappy with the fact that he practically insulted her and her friend by calling them Marines, but he couldn't tell that and after looking her over as well his eyes returned to the captain before him that had burning chocolate eyes. His eyes narrowed into a glare behind the identity-disguiser.

"Just looking at you two Marines pisses me off…" he muttered while turning from them a second time. As he walked off, Franky gazed over his "family" and nodded his head to them all. "Get these two out of my sight and let's get started on…" He halted in his tracks and a clear threat surfaced in his voice. "_Dismantling their means of transportation._"

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI ANIKI!!" roared every person in the room and they all headed for the door, but stopped when Madeline made another attempt at getting her hat returned to her or at least the majority of them did.

"Do whatever you want to the boat! Just, _please_, gimme back my hat, dude! And we're not Marines."

"Why?!" he snapped as he jerked around and quickly approached her while bending down and getting closer to her every time he said a word, "Yes." Closer. "You." Closer. "Are." Then he was about two inches from her face. "And if I don't, what'll you do?"

"I wouldn't get that close to her, dude…" Nira advised in a low voice, a very small smile on her face while watching the spectacle unfold without losing her own cool.

Her eyes flashed with anger and she made the four centimeters quickly disperse into about five millimeters.

"I'll kick! Your! ASS!"

"Well then!" he growled back as he stood up straight. He held out the hat and dangled it above her in a very taunting manner. "You aren't going to get it!"

The two of them argued even more, both of them up in each others faces with looks that could kill. Every person there was standing still as they watched the young lady and their Aniki go at it, but Nira couldn't take to loudness of her own captain, which she was used to, added to the booming voice of Franky's.

"Oh for the love of all things truthful!" she exclaimed while raising her voice and shaking the chains, "Will you please just give her the damned hat back?!" Her words echoed through out the open space and slowly faded away as the argument died down. "God! The stupid bastard we stole the ship from was just as friggin' stubborn…"

Franky, having paused from yelling at Madeline to look up and listen to Nira, processed the last sentence she had spoken. She said "steal the ship", which indicated that they weren't Marines, but since he was the way he was, he would not get rid of all suspicion quite yet.

His eyes went to Zambai and also over to one of the larger members of his family and he nudged his head diagonally upwards, signaling them to come over. They did so. The large man quickly made his way over to Nira and unlocked the restraints. She was grateful as she pulled her arms up and rubbed her wrists while looking to her friend. Zambai approached Madeline's backside and grabbed her wrists, to her amazement, gently and easily snapped the links, along with the cuffs.

Madeline started to tilt her head upwards to get a better idea of what Franky looked like, but her neck was forced back down when Franky's large hand clenched the fabric of her collar and lifted her up onto her feet. She then looked up completely, her eyes wondering if she would get her hat back now. (What a surprise right?)

He saw the question in her eyes and on her face as she stared and he sighed seeing that she wasn't going to back down until she had it returned.

"Ah!" she breathed as he set the barrette back on top of her head, her demeanor going back to normal and her hands going up to make sure that her hat was really there, "Back where you belong!"

But Nira wasn't so easy to relax.

"So, first you say we're Marines and then you let us go?"

Franky crossed his arms, yet again, and a stern gaze played from his eyes.

"I'll take your word for it now," he told her, though addressing it to the both of them, but Madeline wasn't really paying much attention since she was just so incredibly happy to have her "precious" back, "But either of you do anything that causes even the least bit of suspicion and we'll take drastic measures to take you down."

"Of course…" she grumbled, still upset about the fact that he wouldn't believe them, but she decided to ignore it and addressed her captain, "So now what?"

"Dunno…" she replied, "But I'm–"

Suddenly the ear splitting sound of metal being ripped from metal, boards of wood being ripped apart and snapped, pretty much all dismantling noises reached every being there.

"DAMMIT!" Franky cursed. He removed his "disguise", showing his true identity as he sprinted out of the building, leaving the two former captives dumbfounded.

Madeline leaned over to Nira and whispered, "Why isn't he wearing pants?"

"I don't want to know…" Nira said back while putting some of her hair back behind her ear, "But anyways." She wanted to get everything that belonged to them together so that they would have all of it packed and ready to go when they were able to. "So whe–"

"Hold up!" Madeline rang out as she ran after the odd, Speedo wearing man.

The doctor sighed heavily as she watched her friend bound off and knew that she couldn't let her friend alone for very long or something bad might happen, so she followed behind her lead. She had skidded to a stop as the sight of two very large sea horse like things were tearing the Marine vessel apart with a few other people and Franky scolding them for it while Zambai attempted to calm him down.

"Aniki! Aniki!" he pleaded with his arms up, trying to keep his leader from going ballistic, "Don't get mad over a Marine ship! It's good material!"

"I don't care!" he protested while starting to stomp forward, "I didn't give any orders as to d–"

"Uh… Hey Franky…" started Madeline as she looked upon the now banged up floating, hunk of metal along with her friend who mumbled that their ride out of here was now ruined, "Do you know where we can get…" She paused as he turned around and she got a full body look at him. He was dressed and proportioned so oddly with his bulging forearms, standing up straight blue hair, hot pink, opened button down shirt, and black Speedo. It took all she had not to get a completely questioning look on her face. "Where we can get a new boat?"

His face scrunched up at the question. Unfortunately he did.

"Yeah," he confirmed, "You can go into town tomorrow to make preparations with Dock 1, but for now, you two need to come with me." As he started to walk very fast towards the city Zambai went to his side and asked where he was planning on going. "To see if I can get a message from Kokoro…"

After pretty much speeding through the water-way streets, the three of them arrived at the town sea train station where a certain individual stood out from within the crowd of coming and going people. She was short, with extremely long, puffy blonde hair that was put up into two pig tails and wore a conductor's outfit.

"Oi… Old lady Kokoro…" Franky muttered as he approached her with a slumped over upper body, "I need you to help me out…"

"Nahahahahaha!" came her raspy old voice as she turned around while holding a bottle of alcohol in her grip, "Franky! What is it I have to help you with?"

His arm motioned to the two young girls who were having a moment of their own and Kokoro's usual smile got wider as another laugh was being held back. Madeline was occupied with looking over the shiny and sparkly items that a vender had at his stand and Nira was having some trouble with getting her away from it.

"Madeline, I don't care," she scolded while hitting her on the head, almost knocking the captain into the sill of the wood, "We can't afford it."

"Aww!!" Madeline whined while regaining her composure, going back to gazing, and just a few seconds later being dragged away from the stand, "But Nira, it would look SO pretty!"

"I need you to write them a note for a new boat…" he admitted while getting an embarrassed look on his features.

Kokoro laughed loudly as she watched the two of them and Franky's facial reaction to them and couldn't help, but laugh at it all. She replied with a very content "Of course!" and took a gigantic gulp of her sake, and then turned her head around a few times before looking back at him.

"I think I'll need a piece of paper, don't you?"

"Kokoro…" Franky growled low as a rough sigh escaped and he stomped up to one of the other conductors that was directing people off and on of the trains, "Hey. I need some paper. Do you have any that I could use?"

"Of courrr-AHHH!!! F-Franky!" the elder man screamed as he looked upon the towering cyborg and started to stutter, "W-Wha-What are you doing here?"

Another rough sigh came from him.

"I just need some paper…" he said trying to keep a very calm face, but his expression had to show his impatience.

The man nodded to him rapidly and quickly pulled a clean sheet of paper from his schedule book and held it out to him.

"H-H-Here you are, Franky…"

"Thanks," he rumbled while taking the paper gently and then turned and stomped back over to Kokoro just as Nira and Madeline approached as well. Snapping his arm out, he gave her the paper. "Here. Now will you please?"

"Nahahahaha!!" Kokoro laughed again while taking it, "Yes. Yes." She took out a pen from inside her jacket and quickly started to write out the note asking Galley-La to make the two of them a new boat as a favor to her. As she reached the end of it, she placed a kiss mark right at the bottom right hand corner and handed it out to Nira since Madeline had some how gotten out of her hold and away from her only to get engulfed in yet another vendor's items. "Here you are. I hope it will help."

Nira nodded to her gratefully and turned to face her friend, thinking she was still by her side, but that wasn't the case and her eyes narrowed.

"OH! God dammit girl!" she screamed and rushed after the red head.

The brown eyed girl yelped and scurried behind the stand for protection from the doctor's wrath. Luckily for both of them, Nira was able to skid to a stop before slamming in it, but she since she recovered fast she sped to the back side, causing Madeline to lunge out from behind it and head into Franky's general direction. The conductor started to laugh again and took yet another swig out of the bottle.

"You've found yourself some very interesting characters, Franky," she told him while walking away, "Treat 'em well!"

Franky grunted affirmatively, agreeing with the words "interesting characters", moved himself to where he was right in Madeline's path, and easily picked her up to throw her over his shoulder.

"C'mon…" he mumbled while walking away slowly, his blue hair starting to fall, "If you two are like this constantly I'm going to need more cola…"

"Cola?" Nira repeated with a questioning tone while staring at his back side with a wondering expression.

"Just come on…" he said back as a reply.

Suddenly, Madeline groaned out loudly in discontent at the fact that the large man was not planning on setting her down as they walked on.

"What is up with you people and throwing me over your freakin' shoulders?!"

* * *

**_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE!!!_**

_Here's it is!! Right after posting another chapter of Happy Meal!! I hope you all enjoy it just like I had writting it and I really hope it turned out good too. Thank you all for reading and please review!!! I would really appreciate it!!_

_-Love Maruri_


	15. Out in Water 7

"Ohhhh!" Madeline cooed as her head turned every direction possible, "This place is amazing!" Her eyes then went to Nira quite quickly with a look of wonder and excitement. "Don't you think, Nira?!"

Her friend sighed with a smile on her smooth features. For about thirty minutes worth of walking she had been listening to her captain's "ooing" and "awing" and "Isn't this so cool?!"ing and, as she always did, she listened, endured, and all over enjoyed the positive interest that cascaded out of her every pore.

"Yes, yes, Madeline," she replied kindly while she too looked around, only she was paying much more attention to her surroundings, "It certainly is, but we need to find Dock 1."

"I know. I know, but just look at all the incredible things her–Ooo!" The red head moved away from her doctor's side as a small version of Sodom and Gomorrah that was baby blue with pale yellow spots caught her wandering eyes. "Look at this yagara!" It grunted with a confident tone and made its posture straighter, attempting to impress her. She chuckled. "Well aren't you just a ladies bull?"

The yagara seemingly grinned at her, pushing out another reverberating grunt. Nira's eyes rolled in a playful manner as she watched Madeline pat the animal's head. Her captain was always a sucker for any kind of animal. Then her usual unbreakable attention span was surprisingly taken from her watch on her captain to staring and having her head follow a very large aquatic animal transport a carriage type thing of people dressed up in expensive, regal clothing and wearing what looked like masquerade masks.

"Now that's something you don't see every day…" she mumbled while adjusting her body's position to where she could look at them better.

Madeline started to react to her friend's quiet statement, releasing the affection she had been giving the yagara bull.

"What are you tal–"

"Pardon me!"

"AH!"

Nira jerked around immediately to see what had just happened and to do what she could to help, but all she had time to register was Madeline plunging face first into the wooden holding container on the yagara's back and the transportation animal bucking upwards slightly and swimming off out of sudden fright. The teal haired girl snapped back around to practically chew up and spit out the imbecile who had "accidentally" separated her and her captain, but she stopped after she took a good look at two major factors. The young man was already too far away, and was about to enter a large crowd where many people were getting on and off of one of those large creatures so she wouldn't be able to know where he had gone and then the most major was the bag he had. He was clutching a small bag that possessed a medical symbol on it.

The girl's head went downwards slightly. He was just rushing home to get that medicine to someone he cared about. No real reason to get upset about that…

'Shit,' she cursed inwardly, 'Now we're separated in an unfamiliar city…'

Looking back behind her in the direction that Madeline "went" in, she saw the yagara turn a corner and frantically came up with a solution.

"Yuuri!" she yelled out, her gaze following her arm upwards to the just barely cloudless, blue sky and pointed to the large red colored avian hovering in the air, "Follow her! Don't let her out of your sight. We can't lose her!"

The bird nodded affirmatively.

"I know the drill! I'm on it!" she sung and then took off after the surprised water animal.

A rough sigh emitted from her lungs as she ran her fingers through her long, but it wasn't as long as it used to be, hair and she went back to her, more like their, original path. Though she was worried about her, she knew that, like they always had, they'd make their way to one another someway somehow…

"Sooner or later…"

--

I stepped out of the seat that was latched onto "my" borrowed yagara's back and stood on the edging of a large solid platform. The place was completely deserted except for a man heading toward a huge door and the floating yagara bulls that had been ported and tied down to keep them from going anywhere and a familiar one stuck out from the line. It was the baby blue one that had swam off with Madeline, which must have meant that she beat me here. Being beaten made me cringe, since I was competitive at times, but the fact that I knew where she was and she was safe canceled it out immediately and as I turned my head back to the male who stopped in front of the door, my entire body practically sank while I stared at it.

"Hmm," I hummed sarcastically to myself out loud as I looked upon the gigantic cement door that had an enormous "1" imprinted on it, "I wonder if I'm in the right place?" Shaking my head from side to side, I jogged towards the entrance just as the, now clearly visible, built man started to shove it open I stopped about a few feet away just to get a good look at him and he apparently noticed.

"YES?!" he yelled while turning around to face me, "HOW CAN I HELP YOU, MISS?!"

My eye twitched when I came to the conclusion that this monster of a man naturally spoke like this. Oh how annoying…

He was built, and very built at that with a long beard that possessed gray colors streaking through it. His tools were strapped to his bare torso by two leather straps that wrapped around him in the shape of an "X" and his overall look was very rough, but even though his voice was booming, there wasn't a negative intonation in it.

"Well," I started, trying to block out the ringing of his voice and get my reason as to why I was here back to the front of my mind, "A friend of mine was supposed to meet me here and since the yagara she rode is here, I figured she had already gone in and I hope that you might help me get in."

"SURE!" he bellowed with a smile.

Turning back to the door before him and placing the palm of one hand on it, he applied an amount of force onto it that seemed like nothing and the stone slab began to move forward. This city sure had some interesting characters, which that was for sure.

As the one door that was pushed open stood straight out into the open area, the frequently talked about shipyard became completely exposed, or at least the beginning of the multitude of platforms and buildings did. Many men hard at work on the elevated work stations, some on the ground fashioning cannons or carrying materials on their shoulders, but no matter where I looked every being here was doing something that required their attention and my ticket in's attention was needed as well.

"Tileston!" screamed an older looking man from in front of an opened storage looking building, waving one hand while the other was cupped around his mouth, "Come on! We've got to get this finished by this evening!"

"ALRIGHT!" he replied and my shoulders flinched upwards in an attempt to cover my ears from the loud sound, but I returned to normal as he turned to address me. More loudness… "I HOPE THAT YOU FIND YOUR FRIEND, MISS!"

I smiled as best I could while I watched him bound off with slamming steps. How in the world could someone talk naturally with such a yelling voice? Not to mention who in the world would be able to put up with that on a daily basis?

My eyes rolled around to see if I might be able to get a small glimpse of her somewhere in this vast place full of robust men, but instead, I heard yelling cut around one of the nearby platforms. Luckily it wasn't that one man from before. He was nice and all, but god almighty… so loud. I followed the voice and I had found who I was looking for only not in the situation that I had hoped for…

--

I started to cower under this young, blonde male's aggressive posture and tone as he screamed at me. For what reason he was, I had no idea. Well… actually I did, but I didn't see it as much of a reason to be jumping down my throat about it.

"You immoral girl!" he screamed, an incredibly visible vein forming on his forehead from anger. His teeth were clenching down on the end of the smoking product with much tension that caused his very minimal facial hair to stand out as he continued. "Coming into a workman's place wearing such clothing!"

Every once in a while my mouth opened to respond, but I was never given the chance to speak up.

"You should not be wearing such revealing garments!" he spat while taking a violent step towards me every other five seconds or so, "You should be wearing trousers! Long trousers! And not to mention you should be wearing a full on shirt! Not a halter!"

I was completely confused. What was wrong with my clothing? I wasn't a distraction here, or I didn't think so. I mean my metallic gold halter top and mid-thigh, dark rose pink shorts weren't that revealing in my opinion and they weren't tight on my figure either. I felt quite comfortable in them and didn't have the insecurity that I was a HUGE distraction and had every man looking at me, but apparently, to this man I was apparently that and I started to retreat.

My feet started to slowly move backwards as a reaction to my fear of him. He was angry and his anger was one I was not used to being hit with. I kept uttering the word "but" when he was forced to stop scolding me and take a breath, except he wouldn't give me enough time to keep going so I looked around for some sort of protection. Two men were heading straight in this direction. They both looked like they would be nice enough to help me out and so I decided that they would be my shields from this lunatic carpenter. Unfortunately, as they drew closer and closer yet, so did he and my feeling of being threatened was increasing.

'Wait for it Madeline… Wait for it…' I instructed myself inwardly while shifting my gaze between him and the two beings approaching, 'Annnn… Close enough!'

Lunging myself about three feet from my original spot, I darted quickly behind the both of them, majorly behind the long rectangular nosed one making myself as concealed from that crazed blonde as much as I could. I picked the oddly nosed one because he seemed to be the kindest and most understanding out of the two of them to me. I don't mean to say that the shirtless man with sunglasses, green tattoos over his upper body, and a peculiar spike on his head didn't seem nice and all, but this capped young man gave off nicer vibes and not to mention he was cute.

"Dude! Just leave me alone!" I cried out from around the arm of the turtle neck, feeling confident that I could speak freely now that I was behind someone that could help me out, "God! I've done absolutely nothing wrong!"

The cigar smoking man glared at me as he saw that I was taking refuge behind two of his co-workers and he stepped forward, biting even more into his tobacco product.

"It's immoral!" he growled, "You shouldn't be wearing such thin–"

_!SLAP!_

My expression brightened at the sight I had just beheld.

--

The cigar slowly rolled to a stop as the echoing sound of skin slapping skin faded into the humid air.

Paulie's face was one of blank awe and he had absolutely no idea of what had just happened or what had just collided with his cheek. Lulu stared straight at his blonde co-worker, his sunglasses slipping down his nose slightly and Kaku's eyes followed the round smoking product until it came to a complete stop, but then returned to Paulie and his assaulter. Granted the both of them had a bit of confusion as to why this young red headed girl had suddenly dashed behind them, but their amazement for this current spectacle was much greater.

"You will not speak to my captain like that ever!" hissed Nira from between gritted teeth.

Madeline peaked even further out from behind her protector's arm to see exactly how hard her friend had smacked him and a her lips curled up. There was a very large and clearly visible red mark on the side of Paulie's face.

"What in the…" Paulie mumbled while he processed that his cigar had just been sent flying out of his mouth and realized that his skin was tingling. He snapped his head over to the pirate doctor that just assaulted him and his anger flared even more. "Who ar–"

"Stop it, Paulie," said a voice that was approaching from the side. All of their attention went to the blue haired, bizarre colored suit wearing man who walked up casually to the group while looking at each individual face, giving Paulie one of disappointment, an impressed one to Nira, and Kaku and Lulu a very odd look as he saw Madeline hiding behind the two carpenters. A smile came up on his features and he gave his gaze back to Paulie. "Go back to your project, Paulie. It is this young lady's decision on what she wears."

Paulie growled from low in his chest, but did as his superior had told.

"Who are you?" asked Nira while she motioned to Madeline to come back over to her side.

The man didn't answer as he kept his eye on the irritated Paulie and Lulu saw the gesture made by the other young woman. He moved from Kaku's side, turning to her slightly.

"You can go on," he said in a reassuring low voice, "Paulie isn't going to come back to bother you for a while."

Madeline looked to the shipwright from the other side of the one she was taking refuge behind and stared at him cautiously. She sensed he wasn't some crazoid who was going to jump down her throat about what she was wearing so she nodded, bolted from around the long nosed carpenter, and joined Nira's side all in a matter of seconds so there would be some kind of feeling of protection for her. Her friend smiled while tucking the information of who she had majorly hidden behind away for later use. From her observations, Madeline always had a thing for falling over a man who she thought was attractive, though sometimes, her choices were a bit odd.

"Nmaa~…" the blue haired man started, giving his attention back to them and getting their attention in return, "I am I–"

"Iceburg-san," said a feminine voice as a dull clicking of heels across a compacted, dirt path approached the little group, "I have the information you had asked for on these two."

"As expected Kalifa. Is there anything that I need to know?"

Both Nira's and Madeline's full attention went to this secretary lady. Her long blonde hair was up in a high pony tail with a purple head band strapped across the top, and as she brought the file up to her reading level, the index and middle finger of her hand went to the side of her glasses and adjusted the brim on her nose. Wondering faces were on everyone, but the two pirates looked to one another, questioning what she had found out about them.

"The only thing of great importance is that they are wanted by the Marines, but other than that, they don't seem like much of a threat."

"Well, that's quite alright," Iceburg said while turning back to them and scratching the head of the small white mouse that popped up out of his pocket, "Now I'm guess you two have come here to discuss about a ship."

The two girls replied with a yes at the same time, with Nira quickly bringing out the note that Kokoro had written for the both of them which Iceburg took from her and read immediately. Smiling a small smile, the mayor of Water 7 crumpled up the piece of paper, rolling it around between the palms of his hands then held it out to Kalifa. The secretary gave him an affirmative nod while bidding them all farewell, turned on her high heel, and headed towards the main building to go throw away the request as well as get back to her work.

"Come follow me, please and we'll talk about the details," Iceburg said while turning on the heel of his shoe and starting to head towards a large pile of wooden pillars that were stacked up in a pyramid shape.

Madeline looked to Nira with a wondering look, yet her friend shrugged saying she was just as clueless and as they trailed behind the Galley-La head director, Kaku passed them up quickly to get to his boss's side.

"Yes, Kaku," he said in a way to show him he acknowledged his presence while keeping his gaze forward.

"Would you like me to gather the foremen, Iceburg-san?" he asked.

The blue haired man nodded affirmatively while adding that he only wanted the best of his employees there and the next thing that was seen was Kaku leaping up to one of the many platforms and darting down behind the multiple men, tapping someone every ten or fifteen men. Madeline's jaw dropped slightly at the amazing man as she watched him hop up to an upper level and then disappear around the corner. She was obviously astounded by his abilities and if it wasn't for Nira, she probably would have stopped walking to keep watching or taken off after him in an attempt to keep up.

As they followed, men of various shapes and sizes joined with them, making a good sized group once they reached the place of destination though as they took a seat after Iceburg motioned for the to do so, the obviously main shipwrights: Kaku, Tileston who caused Nira's body to slump forward a bit because of their first encounter, Paulie the blonde lunatic, Lulu, and the totally unknown Lucci in his white sleeve-less shirt, dark brown suspenders, and bowling like shoes went beside him as well as each other forming somewhat of a half circle.

"Now… What type of ship do you two need?" Iceburg asked politely while putting his hands in his pockets.

"Well, Madeline should I tell them or will you?" Nira said, asking her captain before she did anything else, but the red head didn't react for she was gawking at the top-hat wearing young man.

Lucci didn't seem to notice at first since he was more interested in what Iceburg was planning on doing, but the feeling of Madeline staring at him became a nuisance to him. His neck snapped towards her, sending a very strong gaze right her way and she jumped at the intensity of the look, yet she couldn't look away because he was just way too interesting to her. He seemed like he had two different personalities in her opinion, but her attention was taken away from him as Nira elbowed her in the side while barking "Captain" in a harsh tone and asking again who was going to fill them in.

"Oh… Um, I guess I will then…" she answered while sitting up straight and looking out at the group of men, "It doesn't really matter what type of ship it is, honestly. The nit-picky stuff can be taken care of during the building I suppose, but there is one definite thing."

"And that would be?" Paulie asked, balling up his fists and putting them on his hips.

"Uh…" Madeline started to hesitate from the somewhat angry glare she was receiving from this man, "It… It needs to be able to be manned by only two people."

Suddenly, just about everybody there busted out into disbelieving laughter, saying "That's impossible", "You've got to be kidding", and things of that nature. Madeline's self-esteem lowered dramatically as a sigh escaped her chest. She had a feeling no one would take them seriously. Nira's eyes narrowed at the men who thought this was a joke and also in a bit of disappointment with her friend who gave up easily to the ridicule so she stood from her seat, her expression serious to a point where every bit off attention went to her even though they still laughed.

"This is no laughing matter," she stated with a stern, insulted tone, "We've done it for four years now with multiple ships of different sizes and if you are all going to make fun of how we were able to, then we'll find someone else who will do it for us!"

A smile came onto Iceburg's face and he looked her straight in the eyes.

"I say we do it," he said while facing the large group. "Who would be willing to help? We'll only need about 10 at the max."

The laughter stopped very abruptly as his words echoed over the crowd and heads turned to one another, asking the other person things like "Is he serious" and as they did Paulie looked around at the group as Iceburg did then connected gazes with Tileston, Kaku, Lucci, and Lulu and their heads nodded in unvocal agreement. The boss smiled, knowing that those five would have no problem going from their original projects to help these two out and then the voices of three other young men rose up saying they "would love to help those pretty ladies out".

"Nmaa~… I guess you have your carpenters," Iceburg said, giving his gaze back to them while again, scratching the top of Tyrannosaurus's head when he popped up and chirped for attention.

"And you have yourself customers," Nira added with a smile as Madeline stood up in a very giddy manner, her hands clasped together in front of her chest with a wide grin, "Now about the… 'nit-picky'…"


	16. The Accident

"Hey Senior!!" I screamed from the newly finished deck as the sounds of the men hammering on the large wooden ring like thing around our huge white, dragon looking Sea King friend, "Does it fit?!"

"It fit's just fine, Madeline," he spoke in a very resounding, deep voice while nodding very slightly as to not to disrupt the carpenters adjusting it to fit his bulky frame.

He was quite the sight and everyone who had gathered round on the outside of the wooden fence to be spectators to the wondrous ship that the foremen of the Galley-La Company was working on thought so too since their faces were all ones of awe as they stared at him in the impressive harness that was strapped around him.

Senior was a large, white dragon Sea King with icy blue eyes that were able to pierce through even a human's soul if he tried, but the great thing was about him was he had a very passive, calm, and relaxed attitude when it came to most things. He became apart of our… crew not too long ago since we had saved him from drying up on a deserted island and dying from the dehydration and even though he was freakishly huge, we were able to drag him back into the waters of which he belonged in with his help of course. Long he was not, but huge as in his width he was, but from what he had told us, he never needed to be long to force others to stay away from him.

"Ahhh~! Nira! Can you believe we're getting such a ship?" I asked while twirling around on my heels with a wide grin beaming towards her, "I never thought I'd get to be captain of ship as awesome as this one!"

She shook her head as she helped lower some wood to the soon to be finished shipwrights.

"Amazingly no, Captain. I never thought I'd be able to be on one that was this amazing honestly... I mean…" She looked around to the "control panel" of levers, buttons, and stuff of that matter. "We have a pressurized bubble like shield that will be able to come up over the ship if we need to go under water for protection. Not to mention, Senior now has a harness of some sort that will allow him to be the one to literally navigate us under the surface. It's positively perfect in all honesty."

"I know!" I called out while rushing over to the railing in front of the steering wheel/control panel to look over at the long nosed carpenter chiseling some intricate designs into the wood just under, "So are you all close to being done?"

He looked up to me and gave me a heartfelt smile. It made my heart flutter just a bit to see such a smile. I know Nira probably thought I was crazy for finding a man to be attractive, but as I had told her two days ago, he wouldn't be as good looking in my opinion if his nose wasn't like that. It added a certain quality about him the just made me crazy about him, but of course, no matter how many people I found to be awesome, cool, or cute/hot/fine, there's only one person who I had met so far that all of those attributes and well… yeah…

"We sh–"

"WE SHOULD BE DONE IN JUST A LITTLE BIT!" screamed Tileston from the _other_ side of the ship as he was hammering away on the finishing touches on one of the humongous sail poles.

Kaku gave a defeated smile seeing that the large man practically stole his thunder.

"Yes, that and once we are done, after testing it in the water; you will be able to be on your way."

"Alright!" I exclaimed while throwing my arm up into the air with much delight. Not only would it be done soon, but we'd be able to get on once it was.

All the four days we've been here, we've helped out with building our new ship as much as we could to where it only took two days to actually get finished and helping out people who were helping us was always a good thing to do as payment along with the normal pay we had already given, though…

--

"We should probably go visit Franky before we leave and thank him for all he's done as well…" Madeline said while coming over to me.

I nodded to her in agreement. We couldn't leave without giving him something in return for all he's done, but what? What could you give a cyborg that drank co– Wait! That's it! We should stop by that bar he took us to a few days ago and buy come of that soda for him as a "Thank you" gift.

"Madeline!" I said getting her attention from the long, beautiful scenery of Water 7 and the afternoon horizon, "We need to stop by that bar and get some of that… cola for Franky as a thank you."

"Un! That sounds wonderful, Doc and–"

Again, a strong gust of wind swept through the shipyard and suddenly my friend's hat was shoved right off her red hair covered head. Her eyes widened incredibly at the sight of her barrette sailing right into the busy work space of the shipwrights and she quickly rushed after it, not wanting to have it damaged. This is going to end badly…

--

Madeline sprinted, her legs throwing her about three feet at a time, over to the railing she was at just a few moments ago and she stretched out her arm to retrieve her beloved head ware, but the barrette was a teasingly few millimeters away from her fingers. Both she and Nira watched the hat gently sink and float down towards Paulie who was busy sanding down the rough edges of their mast, not paying attention to the precious item heading into the line of the sander like tool.

The young girl's eye twitched as the sound of the fabric being torn under the gritty substance that the tool possessed reached her all too emotionally enhanced ears. As Nira approached her friend's side with the intention of comforting her, she saw water rise to the edges of Madeline's lower lids. Her captain's heart had just been broken at the sight of her hat being torn up like it had.

"Madeline…" Nira said while putting her arms around the red head's shoulders in a friendly gesture of comfort as the girl had a tough time even squeezing out the word "No…" in a very pathetic sounding tone, "Madeline, it'll be okay. I'll go get it for you."

Not noticing Nira jumping over the railing and stomping over to him, he stopped his sanding as the tool started to act up and he watched the tattered and torn barrette float limply to the boards below. 'What the hell is this thing…?' was the thought that passed through his mind as he stared at it with a curious look playing on his face until the teal haired girl got to him. When he looked over to her, his face sunk and his eyes conveyed a thought of "What do you want now?"

"Give me the hat."

His eye brow cocked upwards in confusion. What hat was she talking about? But he soon realized she was referring to the tattered and torn fabric in his hand.

"Here," he said holding it out to her in an apologetic manner since he acted a bit rude just a few minutes ago.

She said "Thank you" while taking the hat from him and looked at the damage that had been done. It was a miracle that it didn't fall through her hands it was that ruined. Asking Paulie if it went through the "sander" just to make sure, he nodded to her saying it had and she looked up to her friend. Madeline was hung over the railing in a very sad manner which snapped Nira' heart in two as she headed back up the stairs to the red head and Paulie returned back to the mast.

'Well, at least it's in relatively one piece…' she thought to herself before getting back to Madeline's side and holding the barrette out to her.

"The damage is pretty bad, but… here it is" The young captain took her precious item in her own hands and her brown eyes watered more. Nira, of course seeing this had to say something to make her feel better or at least attempt to because having Madeline, of all people, upset and crying was never a nice thing… "Maybe we can get it fixed up somewhere as good as new…"

Madeline nodded, muttering the word "Okay" while rubbing her eyes and her nose with her forearm, but she just couldn't seem to stop. That hat had been with her all the time since they had started on their pirate adventure so it hurt to see it close to ruined in just a matter of seconds. Lulu, hearing the commotion as well as watching it all happen, walked up the stairs to the upper deck, went between the two of them, and put both of his hands on their shoulders, squeezing Madeline's in reassurance that they'd be able to find some place to get it repaired.

"The ship is really close to being complete so how about you two head into town and get supplies while we test it in the water."

"Alright," Nira replied while taking her friend's hand in hers and pulling her behind her, "And somebody kick Paulie's ass before I do."

--

She hadn't spoken much as she rode in the yagara, looking at her hat in a very depressing manner. I hated the fact Madeline like this made my own heart ache because she was upset. She was never sad, depressed, angry, or anything like that often, but when she was it seemed to cause me to have a very horrible feeling in my gut. Then again, since she wasn't talking neither had I. I mean, when she said something of course I answered, but it was never anything lengthy which that's what I'm used to…

"You stay here, alright?" I told her as I pulled the yagara to the side of the water way, parking it and tying it to where it wouldn't run away with her again.

She nodded to me as I stepped out of the back and headed into the bar. How depressed she was at the fact that her beloved item was messed up, though seeing her like that made me wonder…

Why was that hat so important?

--

Sitting silently, my saddened trance was broken when the ladies yagara turned around to me and nudged my hands slightly, putting the palms on his snout. I looked up from my barrette and into the amazingly blue eyes of this bull and smiled.

He was worried about me and sensed my upset. How sweet~!

"Don't worry, cutie," I told him, rubbing the top of his snout a bit, causing a grin to crawl onto his face and a grunt to come up out of his throat, "I'll be fine."

"Madeline?" came Franky's very unmistakable voice, "What are you doing out here all alone?"

"Oh, I was just waiting on Nira," I said to him, but I could tell his eyes were drifting to the torn fabric in my hands and my attitude fell once again, "It got caught in one of the tools…"

"Franky!" called out Nira who was walking out of the bar doors with a package in her hand, "What are you doing here?" She moved somewhat cautiously over to the yagara, being very careful as to not let him see what was inside the brown bag. He said he was coming over to see Blueno, but got side tracked by me sitting alone in the back of a yagara. "Well, I'm glad you showed up, 'cause this bull ran off with her a few days ago."

He smiled as I started to laugh, accepting that yeah he had, but I knew the both of us would have to accept that he had gotten me to where we were supposed to be in the first place.

"Would you believe me if I said that he's always done that to pretty young ladies?" Franky asked while scratching the head of the male yagara who leaned into his palm, loving the attention he was getting.

Nira laughed suddenly as I giggled at the fact that he referred to me as "pretty young lady". He made himself seem so old… but when Nira asked "Doesn't that sound like somebody we know Madeline?" my head hung just a bit when I thought back to that blonde and suddenly a revelation struck me like a ton of bricks. This yagara was like _him_. It's no wonder I liked this yagara~!

"Well Franky," started Nira as she climbed into the carriage, hiding the gift from him in a way that he wouldn't be suspicious about it, "We have something to give you back at the Franky House so we'll see you later."

He nodded, but held his large hand out to me, offering to go get it fixed for me. My heart swelled suddenly and the twinkle came right back to my eyes.

"Would you really do that, Franky~?" I asked.

"Sure. You may not be as SUPER as me, but you're super enough for me to help you out some more," he replied.

--

"We've gotta go, Franky," said Nira while taking the reins of the yagara and watching her hand willingly hand over her hat to the cyborg. Snapping them lightly, the bull moved back out into the water way.

Screaming out "Thank you and well see you later", Madeline returned to her normal demeanor of happiness and happy-go-luckiness and as they rode on, Nira became very curious once again and her question that popped into her mind while entering Blueno's came right back to her.

"Hey, Madeline…" she started, bringing her friends attention back to her, "Why is that hat so important to you…?

Madeline smiled wide.

"Because, every captain I've seen usually always has a hat," she replied with an innocent, but totally serious grin plastered on her face.

Nira's expression dropped, as well as her head and she shook it in a very disappointed, but amazingly completely understanding way.

'Dear Lord…'

--

"'Ey, Senior," I said after approaching the floating Sea King at the edge of the cape, both of us watching Madeline run up the gang plank up to look at the completely complete ship of ours. A name was going to have to be thought of for this one sooner or later.

Attached to Senior's back by a wooden ring like harness, the light wood ship sat securely. We were very lucky that he was wide like he was instead of long and it made me smile at the fact that this ship of ours was probably the most unique one we will ever have, not to mention one of the most unique ships anyone will ever have, though my marveling over the awesome Sea King and ship was soon to be halted when Madeline screamed from up on said ship. Senior visibly chuckled as I straightened up very protectively and worried like I always did when she screamed, but all of my danger sensing stopped when she yelled…

"THIS IS THE MOST AWESOMEST KITCHEN I'VE EVER SEEN!!"

The bags in my arms were almost dropped as I rushed up the gang plank with a violent step into the kitchen.

"MADELINE!" I screamed, though I was yet again stopped, "YOU SCARED THE… Whoa…"

The kitchen's dark wood interior gleamed under the adjustable lights that hung from the ceiling. Kitchen utensils were set out artistically on the brown, red, and yellow, smooth, marble counter tops. A fridge sat nicely in the back corner of the room with the porcelain sink neatly placed on the part of the counter next to it and as my eyes scanned over it, I came across Madeline's eyes gleaming over as she ran the tips of her fingers over a blade of a high quality cutting knife that she had taken out of the holder.

"This really is a pretty awesome kitchen…" I muttered, but, _yet again_, I was stopped from my "ooing" and "awing" when I heard a very familiar voice.

"MADELINE! NIRA!" squawked Yuuri in a very frantic and worried tone.

Looking to the other, I walked out onto the deck to see what in the world was wrong with my/our bird to cause her to freak out like she was.

"What is it Yuuri?" I asked, stretching my arm and allowing her to land on it. As she close to yelled the Marines were on their way, my expression dropped to the ground and my head snapped back to Madeline. "Madeline g–"

"I know what to do!" she said while running up the stairs to the upper deck where the control panel was.

"Alright…" I said to myself, walking into the kitchen still with Yuuri on my arm. I found a pen and a piece of paper, wrote a quick note, and attached it to the present that I had gotten for Franky. We might not be able to deliver it in time, but Yuuri could. "Yuuri, I need you to go deliver this to the Franky House, no questions asked, and get your avian ass back her as fast as you can, got it?"

She was slightly afraid of the fact that they were setting everything up while she would be gone, but trusting my judgment she nodded and once I stepped out of the kitchen door frame, she took off. Both Madeline and I watched her fly off towards the house.

"Are you all set to leave in five minutes, Captain?!" I yelled to Madeline at the control panel.

"Set and ready, Doc!"

--

In his chair in a very comfortable position, Franky sat and watched his family work hard on separating the latest ship they dismantled. Leg crossed over the other, everything was going smoothly and nothing was really happening after he had gotten Madeline's hat all patched up and fixed, though it was tough to get the lady to do it for him, she was more interested in getting him some different (more like "more") clothing, but that's beside the point. He was waiting patiently for the two of them to return so he could get the barrette that he had gotten fixed though he was having a bit of a craving for soda…

"Zambai!" he yelled out, getting the most trust worthy one of his family member's attention, "Could you go into town and get some more col–" But he was cut off by the sight of Yuuri swooping through the wide open doors over to him, dropping a package directly into his lap, and then quickly turning around leaving the place. "Huh…?"

Inspecting the package, he saw that there was a note attached to it. Taking it and opening it up, he read over the note quickly wanting to know who it was from as quickly as he could. There was a very suspicious feeling in the back of his head that it was from Madeline and Nira since the package looked very familiar.

_Franky,_

_Thank you for everything you've done to help us out. Unfortunately, an emergency has arisen and we have to leave the island quickly. The bag in your possession is a gift from me and Madeline. Hope you like it._

_ Hope to see you in the future,_

_Nira_

"What?!" he exclaimed, shooting up out of his seat actually scaring some of his family because of that sudden outburst, but it was obvious that he didn't really care since he held the barrette up and stared at it, "But…"

--

"Franky! You saw them?!" squealed Chopper as he wiggled around in happiness at the fact that their friends were still alive and well.

"How were they Franky?" asked Luffy with curiosity pouring from his voice.

"When did they leave Water 7?" piped up Usopp from behind his captain.

"Hold on, you guys!" Franky screamed throwing his arms up in the air, "You've gotta give me some time to speak! Now one question at a time."

"I believe we should start with Sniper-san's question," said Robin from her position beside a few barrels with Nami at her side.

"They left about half a day… maybe a day before you guys showed up. Though they left in a hurry, and I wasn't even able to return this…" he answered while bringing out the now patched up and somewhat good as new barrette.

"Isn't that Madeline's barrette?" asked Usopp, his face brightening a bit at the fact that the red haired captain was alright and nothing, but her hat was harmed.

Franky nodded as he watched Sanji rush up between the sniper and Luffy to look at the hat. He looked to every crew member of his new nakama.

Each one of them, minus Zoro who was taking an apparently very comfortable nap on the lawn, was looking at him with very curious expressions. Luffy was of course very interested to know how their friends were doing since they had up and left. Robin and Nami, being the informative ones had been researching on them since they had left and were not only giving Franky looks, but giving each other looks as well. Chopper and Usopp were grinning to the other at the fact that the two of them were okay and Sanji was leaning over Usopp with a relieved expression that the captain he was so fond of was not in some kind of danger, as far as he knew anyways.

"Now, why they left in a hurry I do not know why."

"Could it be because of those rumors that we heard at Enis Lobby, Franky?" asked Robin after chatting with the navigator quietly.

After the shipwright nodded affirmatively, the blonde cook turned to the archeologist with a very interested expression and asked...

"Rumors, Robin-chan?"

"Yes, while Franky and I were chained to the wall I had heard two Marines talking about two young girls matching the description of our disappearing friends and while we were in Water 7 before that whole scene, I did some research and learned about how much of a nuisance to the government they were. It seems that they were once part of the marines and caused them so much trouble that they were imprisoned. No one knows how they got out but it seems that from then on out, whenever they are with someone, no matter how short of a time, they leave everyone with a bit of bad luck." Looking back to Nami, the orange haired girl held up the latest one of her newspapers, the head line, **_TWO JINXES HAVE A TRAIL OF BAD LUCK BEHIND THEM_**, pinning the Water 7 incident on them along with the Strawhat crew as well. "They're blaming it on them as well."

Usopp gently swiped the newspaper from her hand and immediately started to read the article.

"Hey… They are!" he stated and reading over his shoulder was the cook, not only reading every word and engraving the statements, but scanning over the photo they had of the two of them.

"Shitty government…" the blonde hissed while looking at the phrase _'…bring these two bringers of bad luck to the government if you are able to get your hands on them…' _and clenching his fist up, "Blaming it on those two beautiful young ladies."

"What's going on?" asked a Zoro who obviously jut woke up from his nap.

"This is what's going on, aho marimo!" barked Sanji, taking the paper from Usopp like he had Robin, only rougher, almost causing him to get multiple paper cuts, and shoved the pack into the swordsman's chest.

As he read it his expression dropped further and further until…

"The hell is this nonsense?"


	17. Midnight Flute

He had been swimming around in this large tank with these other fish for a week and a half. After being sent flying into part of the ocean he had never ever dreamed of being in by that annoying Strawhat and his crew and stripped of his dream of becoming a Sennenryu, he had been caught and was being sold off for as someone's pet.

Or at least he really hoped that it would be as a pet…

As he looked around at all of the passer-byes, the sea horse bounced around in the tank, hoping to finally find someone who would be willing to buy him and take them home with them and he seemed to find the perfect person.

A bright red head that was approaching the stand ended up being the one who caught his eye. The bright shine in her deep chocolate brown eyes shone a very interesting glow. Oh how he wanted her to come over! Wait, he needed to get her attention first, so he began to move around very quickly, causing the rest of the fish to swim away rapidly, making a seemingly swirling vortex of color and luckily for him, she looked straight at him, and automatically her expression brightened even more.

From the look in her eyes, her memories should get him close to back to his goal…

--

Eyes sparkling as I stared into the tank through the glass, I found the most awesome sea horse ever. Swimming around in an attempt to impress me, the reddish pink sea horse kept my eyes on it the entire time. I was amazed though that the lady there with her ebony skin, bright blue kind eyes, and loose dread locks didn't notice how close to the fish tank I was.

'I know Nira wouldn't exactly like me to… but he's so cute!' I thought to myself as I decided that I would get him and take him "home" with me.

"Umm… Excuse me, miss," I said while tapping her lightly on the shoulder. She turned around to me after setting down a large bag of dog food with a wide smile while sliding her hand through her tightly packed dreads, asking the question that all venders/customer service people always ask and I pointed to the sea horse. "Well, I was wondering how much that little guy is?"

Her expression dropped suddenly as she stared at the sea creature and mine did as well. Back in my mind rang out a voice saying that it would be to expensive to purchase him or that he wasn't for sale at all and my stomach sunk along with my face.

"Actually…" she began while walking up to the glass and staring at the marine animal, "I don't remember ever getting this one…" My feelings fell more. Then how was I supposed to get this guy if she wasn't even able to remember getting it? Though my happiness was quick to return to me when… "How does twenty four belli sound?"

I jumped a bit at the low price she had put on him. How wonderful it was to be able to get a large sea horse for such a small price! It was really quite the deal in my opinion.

Pulling out twenty five belli, seeing that that was all I had left from my whole shopping trip, I handed it to the vender quickly. Anticipation rushed throughout my body as I waited and watched her fish the very willing sea horse out of the large tank. I laughed through when she talked to herself while handing me the marine animal, saying that it was quite funny that she didn't even remember getting it and she was the owner of this stand. It was quite funny, though I didn't want to ruin my chances of getting it.

"Would you like me to find a tank for you?" she asked, while motioning to the large tanks that were on display.

Many of them sparkled and gleamed and glared under the setting sun and I was tempted to go back to Nira and see if she would allow me to get one, but just getting this sea horse was pushing it. I shook my head no to her, pulling the sea horse closer to me.

"I think I can manage," I said to her while turning around and heading in the direction back to our ship, "Thank you!"

She waved back to me in a "You're welcome" fashion and as I quickly ran towards my "home" I clutched the sea creature to me tighter while having my shopping bags hanging from my forearms. I was excited and…

'I hope Nira won't mind…'

--

Coming out from my office, opposite of the kitchen, and look around the deck I saw that one of our four emergency barrels was missing from the group. My eyes wandered around the deck as I looked around for it. I was brought out here at first because of the length of time that water had been running, but the oddness of one of the barrels being gone seemed to take my attention.

I looked all over for it, wondering if it had been moved, but the ten minutes I spent looking for it discouraged myself because I just couldn't seem to find it. Maybe Madeline knows what had happened to it was the thought that came to me as I went over to the kitchen door and pushed it open.

"Hey Madeline…" I started while looking out of the kitchen door frame, doing one last check of the deck before I gave my gaze to her, "Do you know whe… What the hell is that thing and what the hell are you doing?"

My red headed friend paid no mind to me as she cut the water off to the barrel that I was looking for and set this sea horse in it. She smiled sweetly to the creature while patting it on its head lightly making it honk and somehow get a grin on its odd features. It was not like any sea horse I had ever seen and believe me; I've seen some odd sea horse, but one that honked was not on that list…

"I'm making a temporary home for this little guy," she replied while giving the sea horse a small kiss on its long snout.

My eye twitched.

"And where exactly did you get that 'little guy'?"

"From a local pet stand."

"Oh, did you now…" I said, doing my best not to let out a growl of frustration. I didn't know how many times it would take to get her to stop bringing these things onto the ship, but every time I told her, it seemed that it just went in one ear and out the other… "And did you buy the bird feed for Yuuri like I had asked?"

"Nope~," she said quite confidently with a smile on her face. Not even fazed by the anger vein appearing on my forehead she reached into a nearby bag and began to pull out a large bag of sunflower seeds, "But I did buy some exotic sunflower seeds for her. They're healthier for her and we can grow some of our own too."

The anger I had deflated a bit like a balloon as she picked up the barrel and began to carry it out of the kitchen once I moved out of the way. I followed her out a bit.

"Don't think you've gotten out of trouble Madeline," I said to her in a bit of a rough tone while watching her set the wooden container down and then go back into the kitchen, grab some home made food for the creature, and then fed it.

"Honestly, I didn't think I would get out of trouble Nira," she said back to me while happily watching the sea horse bounce around in the barrel happily. Looking back to me with those bright eyes of hers, she gave a very innocent grin. "I'm never out of trouble with you."

Shaking my head I let out a low laugh, completely agreeing with that statement…

"I guess I'll cook tonight. What do you want?" Suddenly Madeline's expression and demeanor changed suddenly. She stomped her foot on the ground lightly with a pout on her face, protesting with saying that that was her job, not mine. "We'll you can cook tonight since you have that…" I pointed to the pinkish sea horse. "Thing to take care of."

She growled at me a bit while heading up to the upper deck. The sound of a few buttons being pressed and one of the shifts being pushed forward reached my ears. The clear, large hemisphere began to come up over our ship slowly and Madeline calling to Senior from one of the baby den den mushis we had to dive and take us to the next island during the night also surfaced.

"Surprise me then," she answered, quickly skipping down the stairs and going right back to the sea horse.

"Very well then," I said while returning to the kitchen and I quickly got to work.

Taking one of the knives into my hand and starting sharpen the blade, I thought back to Madeline in the first few days after she had forgotten all about her barrette on Water 7 with Franky. She was heart broken for quite some time like she had been when it had first been torn up, but as she always seemed to, she bounced back quicker than I had expected, though of course I knew deep down she still missed it dearly.

"I'll make her favorite…"

--

Everything on the boat was quiet as Senior sailed smoothly under the oceans surface. The water was calm, putting no resistance on the clear bubble like shield as he cut through, heading straight onto to the next island. His two human crewmates were fast asleep in their hammocks while Yuuri was curled up in the crows nest.

Madeline was balled up in her old fashion rope hammock, tightly wrapped in her dark red blanket, holding onto her pillow as she slept on it. Her mouth was slightly agape as she breathed through her mouth, slowly taking in breathes through her stomach. And Nira lying flat on her back while snoring very lightly, her chest rising and falling gently in her torn-sail-turned hammock with the pillow that had somehow ended up at her feet and the blanket knotted around her body.

Popping his head out of the barrel slightly, a sinister smile seemingly crawled onto his circular mouth as he looked to the entrance into their room. In both of their eyes poured out delicious memories that were now his for the taking. His eyes began to glow. Not even the large Sea King suspected him or to his knowledge Senior didn't.

"You both will be my ticket back to being a Sennenryu!" he honked to himself in a low tone.

The last thing to be heard by one and all was the sound of a low whistle ringing through the air…

* * *

_I do apologize that the chapter was so short, but this is all in my friend and mine's plan! Don't worry! These next few chapters are ones that I'm very excited about getting out a ready for each and everyone of you to read! _

_Thank you to each and everyone one of you who read and review~! I seriously appreciate it and so does my co-author!!_

_-Love Maruri_


	18. Four Years Younger

_Thank you to all of you who read this story and review~. I do apologize for the late recognition of all of your support. I hope that this chapter is plently long enough and choc full of fun and interesting things for your entertainment. It took a lot to get it finished, but here it is! Done and ready to go._

_I'm extremely grateful for all of your support and I will keep up the good work!_

_NOW... ON TO THE CHAPTER!_

* * *

Sun starting to rise, the sky beginning to turning blue and the light crawling slowly over the deck as it cut through the water's surface, the red bird up in the crow's nest began to stir. Her dark eyes fluttered open as she came back to her right mind and her beak opened in a yawn.

'Another pretty morning… under the sea,' she thought to herself as she stretched her wings out and hopped up to the edge of the wood, looking out onto the deck that now had a big planter box that Madeline had built full of some of the sunflower seeds she had bought yesterday and then her stomach growled. 'I'm a bit hungry…'

But her thoughts were cut very short when an ear splitting scream came from her two human crew mates' quarters.

"What in the world is going on in there this early…?"

--

She sat pinned up against the wall after falling completely out of her hammock. Utterly confused and frightened she stared into the green eyes of this teal haired girl who held the sharpened end of her knife up against her throat, threatening to slit the skin as soon as she made the wrong move. Madeline shook in complete fear. Where was she? What was going on? And what the hell did that freakish doctor do to her?! This wasn't the way her body was when she fell asleep in the infirmary!

"Where am I?" growled Nira in a low voice, just as clueless as Madeline.

"Oh yeah," retorted Madeline in a sarcastic tone, but in a whisper, "Like I have any damn clue…"

Nira's eyes narrowed and she pressed the blade closer to her.

"I am not in the mood to put up with your attitude." Giving a whimper the red head apologized quickly and Nira gave another low growl. "Who are you? Are you a pirate? Because you had better hope that you're not."

"No!" Madeline said quickly, seriously not wanting to be killed here, especially by this maniac of a girl, "I swear that I'm not! I'm just a cabin girl!"

"Cabin girl, huh?" Nira repeated with amusement very noticeable in her voice even though her face didn't change any. It seemed that it was very funny that this wimp was a cabin girl, but then again, she could be lying to her just so she would let her guard down. "How can I be sure that I am to believe you?"

"Do I seem like I could be a pirate to you?"

Nira looked over this scared and probably hopeless young girl. In all honesty she didn't exactly have the attitude of a pirate. The whole cowering under a sixteen year old really didn't seem like something that a pirate would do, but the clothes she was wearing did not exactly say Marine uniform to her. The halter wasn't in the choice of casual clothes for Marines. Especially for a cabin girl of all ranks so she nodded to her and Madeline stopped, but it wasn't long until she grinned and began to laugh.

"Now that's something no one's ever told me!" she said, a laugh very evident in her words.

"Who's your commanding officer?" Nira asked, cutting her laughter off as her lip twitched. This girl couldn't be a pirate. She was too ditzy and dimwitted to even be on a pirate ship let alone be a pirate herself…

"Smoker, ma'am," Madeline replied quickly feeling that she should be polite if she didn't want to get her head chopped off.

Twirling the hilt of the knife in her hand, Nira returned the blade back into its holster at her side while looking around the room, inspecting every little aspect of it. It would have been quite dark if it wasn't for the window that was letting in the light from the sun that was coming in through the water, of course they had no idea or at least Nira didn't. Madeline took that opening of the crazy Marine woman, who just scared her out of her mind, looking at a certain book that had caught her eye as a chance to get out of there and that's exactly what she did.

Nira, on the other hand, picked up the journal that was lying on a small desk in the bedroom. Slightly beat up and half way written through, the diary had a book mark of some sort sticking out from a certain page. She pulled open the cover, grabbed a few pages before where the book mark was, and flipped the pages slowly.

Writing was on each and every page that she passed. The dates were stated clearly at the top of them and every one of them was filled with words.

"_'Captain's Log…'_ " she read out loud to herself.

_Today actually wasn't very eventful… my doctor took over my job of cooking for tonight which ate at my insides a bit… She knows that that's my job! But then again, she did make the point that I had a sea horse to take care of._

_Oh yeah! About the sea horse. He's amazingly awesome. The pinkish color that is his main one makes him have such a cute and girly look along with the flower like patterns that line his arching build. His mouth is circular and he has the cutest little honk~! I'm happy that my friend didn't completely bite my head off when she saw that I had him, but I know she won't want me to keep him for too long… That makes me a little sad to lose something else, but I know it would probably be for the best. He doesn't seem like the type of animal that should be kept as a pet…_

As the entry continued her expression began to drop. This captain seemed to be an idiot just by reading this journal entry…

"Seems we're on someone's…" She began to trail as she turned around only to find that the cabin girl was no longer there. Another growl echoed out of her throat as she stomped out of the door, calling for the young red head. "Cabin girl! Where are you?!"

As she passed through the doorway, she saw Madeline turn around to face her, her bright brown eyes shimmering in amazement as she pointed upwards towards the water's surface that was quite a ways above them saying "Look!" as she did. They both ended up coming to each others side as they both were mesmerized by the awesomeness that surrounded them. Different colorful fish swam past them, encircled the shield, or just stayed at the hard glass wondering what the hell it was. This whole thing was quite impressive.

Unfortunately, as they stared in awe, the vessel suddenly shook, throwing Nira into the railing and causing Madeline to fall flat on her face from the immediate loss of her feet from under her.

"The hell was that…?" asked Nira to herself, wondering what in the world had just happened that caused the both of them to be tossed like that.

"'Ey, Senior! Be careful! We've got precious cargo on here!" screeched Yuuri from her spot up in the crow's nest.

"Do you want our two human friends to be killed by water rushing in there from this thing being cracked?!" Senior replied while bucking upwards, turning sharply, and heading for a much younger Sea King than himself. "If not then tell everyone to hold on tight!"

"NIRA! MADELINE! HOLD ON!"

As she looked up, Nira's face dropped. That couldn't be Yuuri… Yuuri's a big ball of fluff. Not a full grown bird, but… How could that bird know who she was if it wasn't? And even though her mind was extremely curious about that, she gripped onto the railing tightly while Madeline wrapped her arms around one of the sail poles as the force of Senior's sharp turn pressed on them.

Senior rushed at the long, sea foam green with black stripes, clearly inexperienced Sea King with an intent to send it flying into the next ocean, but of course he couldn't since he did in fact have "precious" cargo on his back.

He roared at the oncoming assaulter, shaking and rattling the make up of the vessel that they were all on. His booming battle cry made Madeline cringe and want to cover her ears, but unfortunately, if she did that she would lose all of the grip she had on the pole. And just as the boat stopped shaking, the top of Senior's snout collided quite hard with his opponents, causing the harness he had around him to shift forward on his wide body, and as it came back to its place, one of the emergency barrels was tossed into the air and rolled straight for the red head.

Hearing the odd noise of the container coming at her, she turned towards it and to her dismay and misfortune, it slammed into her side, forcing her to twist back around to her original position and head face first for the boards below. Though, Nira was right there and all too vigilant to not notice the cabin girl go plummeting to the deck. Reaching out, and grabbing Madeline's shoulder, a little too tightly, she pulled her over to her side as the red head screamed out in pain from the rough grip put on her.

"Is everything alright on there?" Senior asked after huffing at the Sea King who immediately gave up from that impressive blow and returned to his normal course.

"Yeah…" muttered Nira from her spot, "Just fucking peachy…" She looked around, wondering who in the world could be talking. The voice was very loud, and that's what made her confused as to why she wasn't able to find whoever it was that was speaking… "Where are you?"

His blue eyes showed confusion as he stared forward. Why would Nira ask such a question…?

"I'm out here of course."

"Out…" She began to question herself until realization smacked her right in the face. "You're the Sea King?"

"Yes I am, N–" Senior cut himself off abruptly while looking up to the water's surface. "Brace yourselves once again, young ones."

Pulling his nose upwards, he headed to the surface. Nira gripping onto the railing hard with one hand and pulling Madeline closer to her side, the wimpy younger girl clamped her arms around the more intimidating one's waist to brace herself as well seeing that she had no other way to do that.

The bubble surfaced slowly, the water trickling down the clear glass like material as the dock came into view.

Ships of many different kinds had been ported there with "theirs" being the only one of its kind, but even with the odd bubble coming up out of the water the hustle and bustle of the town went on as always with only a few innocent passer-byes actually noticing it.

The teal haired girl looked around at all of the different pirate ships and out of the pure interest she had as being a Marine, she looked up only to find that her inference was correct.

A large black flag with a huge Sea King skull and a boe staff and throwing knives as replacements for the cross bones waved violently in the wind that had oddly started up. Her expression dropped at the fact they were on a pirate ship and how they had gotten there was the major question that rang in her head as the shield started to lower.

--

"What kind of people own this ship...?" I asked myself a loud as I asked myself inwardly as well, not exactly noticing that the shield was going down, but I was brought out of my pondering when a void was in between waist and my hand and there weren't arms around me any more. I looked down and saw that that miserable red head had ran away. "Where did she..."

As I looked around more I came to find her up at this control panel like thing messing around with the many levers and button that was on it and as it seemed she had found how to lower the shield.

"OI!" I exclaimed, grabbing her attention roughly, "STOP MESSING WITH THINGS!" The red head jumped and actually yelped at the sound of my voice while ducking behind the control panel as she saw the look on my face. No wonder she was a cabin girl... "Cabin girl..." I growled, a vein popping out on my forehead, "Get over here or else I'll shove a knife up your ass."

The young girl yelped again and quickly ran over to my side. She was such a wimp that it was extremely amusing, but then again it could get very annoying. Though, of course, when she bowed and apologized, it gave me a satisfied smirk, but I hit her over the head anyways.

"Do not leave my side when we go onto the island, got that?" When she nodded to me and replied with an okay my smirk got wider. "And stand up straight, look proud. You're representing the Marines for God's sake."

"Yes, ma'am," she said while doing as I commanded.

"Good. Oi! Sea King, where are we?"

"We are at the island known as Thousand Island, Nira," he, or at least I assumed was a he, said.

"Thousand Island, hm?" I repeated while looking to the somewhat far off market, but the thought about why he knew my name came to my mind quite fast. "How do you know my name?"

"I'll explain when you two get back," he said while nudging his body upwards, "Now go on." As I nodded, not reacting to the movement of the ship, I felt the cabin girl grip around my wrist and tug on me.

"Come on," she said with a grin playing across her face and a bright gleam of excitement glazed over her eyes, "I wanna go into the town!!"

I can't explain why, but I followed her lead without a word of protest…

--

Watching them walk off of the extending gang plank and around a corner with Madeline excitedly leading as she seems to always have done, Senior did his best to look to Yuuri after they disappeared from his sight.

"Yuuri, go after them. Keep and eye on them, especially Madeline," he told the red bird after she flew over to the top of his snout and landed.

"Hm…" she hummed while pointing her wing at the Sea King, "You don't seem to have much faith in our captain Senior." Looking in the direction they both went, she took her eyes off of Senior to avoid the very stern look he was giving her.

"Do you have faith in our captain who is now…"

"Fourteen~."

"Yes, fourteen and is more hopeless than she was before?"

Yuuri sighed. No, in all honesty, she didn't. Nira would be able to handle herself and stay out of serious trouble while Madeline on the other hand was a wimp who had one of the sweetest dispositions ever that always seemed to get her into trouble as well as her "bad" attitude that seemed to surface now and again…

"No…" the red avian admitted while looking down at the smooth, white skin of the navigator, "Alright. Alright, I'll go make sure they don't get into any trouble."

Flapping her wings rapidly, she quickly took off into the air and after the two young girls. Senior sighed very heavily, causing the water in front of him to wave up and crash around him from the large breath.

"I do not like the feeling of all this…"

--

Popping his head out of the barrel, the sea horse watched as Yuuri flew off through the air after his two delicious memory holding targets. He was utterly disappointed at the fact that Madeline and Nira had run off like they had.

"This was unforeseen…" he hummed to himself lowly, looking around the deck to make sure no surprises were around, "I'll just have to find them myself…"

He hopped out of water that the red head captain had put in that barrel for him. Swimming in the water and looking for them was going to be a very big challenge… Especially since they had headed into the market. He would have gone after them to make sure they returned to this amazing ship of theirs, but he really didn't want to get caught like he had before. That would yet again, put a damper on his plans…

'Oh well!' he thought to himself, falling into the salty water below and floating just below the water's surface, 'I'll just have to stay close to here just in case they return early.'

The sea horse swam around the Sea King and towards the dock to patrol and keep an eye out for the two young women.

--

"Cabin girl…" Nira said doing her best not to snarl at the young, energetic girl who was pulling her along, "Would you be so kind as to release my arm?"

Madeline was quick to let go, sensing the slight irritation in her voice and said, "I'm sorry…" But she paused. Why did this intimidating person keep calling her cabin girl? "I have a name ya know." When she looked Nira straight in the eyes, her look was one that said 'Do I look like I give a damn?' Madeline's expression sank as she turned around, facing her back to her "superior". "Higher ups are such a pain…" she muttered.

Suddenly her head was sent forward as Nira smacked her right on the back of her cranium.

"I told you to respect your superiors."

"Sorry…" she said again while rubbing her head and moving to the teal haired girl's back side. If this was going to keep happening to her constantly when she was with this lady, she might as well keep her mouth shut.

Nodding her own head, Nira looked around at the wide street they were on. Stands were set up on both sides and were spread out. She had heard about this island, though not much. Thousand Island was known for it's abundance of produce, meat, animals, and things of that nature. It had been said that no matter what, they always had one thousand of everything here and it was located quite far into the Grand Line, making it a perfect place for pirates to come and relax.

But her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Madeline going, "Whoa…"

"What is it this time, Cabin Girl?" she asked while turning to find her once again pointing. "Whoa…"

What would have been in front of her if she wasn't facing her back to it, was an even more impressive set up of stands and stalls. The both of them ventured into it, not really knowing what to expect and not exactly paying attention to the large crowd of people heading right for them, but as they started to be swallowed up by them, they took their individual ways of getting out of it as fast as they could.

Madeline, unlike Nira who went along with the flow of the crowd to where she could gently move to a clear area to be out of the way, stopped in the middle of the people; her fourteen year old mind completely overwhelmed by the largeness of the group along with every other aspect of this market. She ended up being tossed and turned and thrown around between people as they moved together, not even paying her a lick of attention.

Once Nira made it out safely, she sighed and looked to her side where her "companion" was supposed to be.

"Alright Cabin girl…" she began, but as she trailed, she saw that the red head wasn't anywhere to be found, "Where the hell did you go…?"

Yuuri on the other hand, who was diligently watching over the two of them, spotted Nira right of the bat. Nodding to herself, she noticed that Madeline was not by her side. Her eyes widened. Even though the two of them got separated constantly, never had they gotten away from the other when they were the ages they were. They had always seemed to stick somewhat close to one another.

She flapped frantically while scanning the sea people for her four years younger captain, but she had no luck…

"How hard is it to find a single red head in a crowd?!" she screeched.

--

After a few minutes of being tossed about between one person and the next, I was suddenly shoved out of the crowd and onto a patch of grass that apparently lead to a local park.

Sitting up slowly, I started to groan from the pain of my front side landing so roughly on the ground. I was only fourteen for God's sake! I can't take stress like this, but what made it all worse was the fact that when I looked around for… Nira I think it was, she was no where to be found. I had lost her and now I was alone in this town with no sense of where I was.

What was I going to do and questions like that were the ones that I asked myself as I got onto a large path that led deep into the park. I had hopes that I would find my way back to her soon because being all alone in an unfamiliar place was not something I enjoyed… But my wonders were interrupted when I heard the very unmistakable sound of some one being threatened…

"I-I-I'm sorry! I d-didn't m-mean it!" cried out this little kid.

Once I turned completely around, my brown eyes widened considerably at the sight I beheld.

This young boy had tears streaming down his cheeks and was scooting away from the man threatening him after falling on his behind. His eyes begged for someone to help him, but he didn't seem to dare to break away from the weirdo coming after him who had two, I'm assuming, friends of his behind him. Which the man was an odd ball… Weird make up colored his mouth and around his eyes and a large red nose protruded from his face and he held a dagger up above the kid in a very menacing manner.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY NOSE, YOU FLASHY LITTLE BRAT?!" he screamed, obviously very upset with whatever the kid had said, but I'm quite sure that it didn't deserve him being killed over it.

Again, the boy cried out, signaling for help and being the way I was, I wouldn't allow some clown to bully a child like he was so I was quick to answer the plea.

"HEY! LEAVE THE KID ALONE!" I spat while sliding to a stop in front of him, my arms out stretched to my sides in a protective manner. The dude's attention snapped right to me. Rage filled his eyes as he stared at me. "Get out of here," I told the little one while nudging my head up slightly. More rage and frustration filled the clown's eyes when he followed my command. For some reason I was feeling quite confident in myself.

"What the hell do you want?" hissed the man who was clearly very unhappy with me.

"Why in the world were you threatening a little ki…" I started to trail as my attention was taken away from the task at hand and to the nose on his face. Curse my fourteen year old attention span…

Reaching up slowly, not really bringing his attention to the arm that was being raised, I leaned in some and set the tips of my fingers lightly on the surface of his nose and gently gave it a squeeze with quite the curious question crossing my lips…

"Is your nose real?"

--

The two of them watched as their captain's face went blank. Buggy's eye twitched and his face flushed at the question this red head had asked and both Cabaji and Mohji had expressions of "Did she really just do what I think she did?!"

Looking to the other, the beast tamer and the acrobat gulped, extremely afraid of how the pirate clown would react to that brave motion of physical contact. Never, in all the time that they had been with Buggy, had anyone dared to ask him if his nose was real and actually _TOUCH _his nose to investigate if it was real or not.

Well, there's a first time for everything and as it seemed, Buggy didn't exactly know how to react either, but it wasn't very long before a reaction came cascading out from him…

"Ahhh!" Madeline cried out from within Buggy's grasp, holding onto his forearm and doing what she could to keep both him and her from choking her seeing as though her feet were off of the ground, "Put me down!"

"DO YOU WANT TO ASK THAT AGAIN, FLASHY BITCH?!" he screamed at her, pulling the dagger that was in his other hand up again, threatening her this time, which would have been the second time she would have had a knife ready to wound her.

Walking down the path, Usopp stopped in mid-stride when he heard a familiar scream come from his side.

'Could that be…? No… But it sure sounded a lot like her…' were the thoughts that passed through his mind as he debated looking and seeing if it was or not. Oh why not? It wouldn't hurt to look would it?

Doing just that, his mouth fell open at the sight of the exact red head he was thinking of being held firmly in the grip of Buggy, the clown pirate, with a blade being held dangerously close to her. He turned on his heel to face his "partner in crime" with a face of worry and an attitude of hurriedness.

"Franky!" he yelped, making the cyborg who just kept on stop and begin to look back at him, "Franky, it's Madeline!"

Starting to face Usopp completely, Franky was quite sure that that couldn't be true, but as he began to question the sniper's accusation he too saw her in the gloved grip of Buggy as well. His eyes widened as he recognized her right then and he was quick to hold his arm up.

"Usopp! Get that bastard's attention!"

The long nosed man nodded and had his front side facing in that direction.

"HEY, BIG NOSE!" he yelled out from between hands that were cupped around his mouth.

Buggy stopped all he was doing. Being "insulted" three times today was not exactly something he was pleased with.

Snapping his head in Usopp and Franky's direction he growled, "Whhat?!" while getting ready to rush over at Usopp. He let go of Madeline as soon as his frightening emotions targeted Usopp who had said the one thing he seriously hated to hear people call him, but he made a very bad mistake. By letting his emotions take over, he had placed his front side right into Franky's line of fire.

And as Franky said "STRONG RIGHT!" his fist sped away from his arm, the chain rattling as it headed right for the pirate and it shoved itself right into his stomach, knocked the wind out of him, and sent him flying right into a tree.

As the shipwright's hand returned to its rightful place they all watched Cabaji and Mohji rush over their captain who slid down the tree truck with practically swirls for eyes, but Usopp quickly came back to the person they had done that for. Both of them rushed over to her side and Usopp bent down by her as she sat up with a slight struggle.

"Madeline," he said, making sure he had her attention, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she replied while giving the two men a very grateful smile, "I'm fine, but… um… do I know either of you? And how do you know me…?"

Usopp smiled a bit, thinking she was just playing around.

"It's me Usopp, Madeline. Remember? We met when you stayed on the Going Merry for about a month."

Her expression was still as clueless as it was before. She even looked up to Franky to see if he would help her remember something, but even he, as "unforgettable" as he is, didn't even ring a bell.

"I'm sorry… Really I am," she said while handing Usopp her attention again, "But I've been with the Marines almost all of my life and never have I met anyone named Usopp…"

The sniper's expression became confused as he looked her in the eyes. Something was missing… A _big_ something and it was very evident that she was upset that she couldn't remember who either of them was and as he thought of a question to ask her, his body language screamed out that something was not right.

"Uh, Madeline, if I may call you that." She nodded. "How old are you?"

"I'm fourteen," she said quickly in a confident, but curious manner, "Why?"

"Please excuse us for one second, will you?" he said to her while standing up, helping her up to her feet as well, and turning his back to her politely. He whispered to Franky as he made him step away from her a bit, "Something's wrong Franky…"

He nodded in agreement as he looked over to her from the corner of his eyes. The look in her chocolate brown eyes told them that she wasn't the Madeline they knew and that something was not there that should have been.

"Shall we get her back to the ship?" Franky asked.

"I think that would be good. Chopper should take a look at her."

"Alright," the large man said while turning back to Madeline. "'Ey, Madeline…" And as she went to say "Yes?" he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, but we need to get you back to Sunny…"

Struggling against Franky's clearly stronger hold, Madeline protested, incredibly afraid of where they were taking her.

"Somebody! Anybody! Please, help me!!"

--

He had never performed a check up on someone outside of his office before, but as it seemed, he needed to compromise with his patient, and friend's needs of comfort seeing that she was very wary of all of her surroundings.

Holding her face still in between his hooves, he closely inspected the peculiar gleam in her eyes and asked, "How old did you say you were, Madeline?"

"I… I'm fourteen…" she stuttered, not exactly comfortable with all that was going on.

In her perspective, a pirate crew surrounded her and a very odd one at that. There was a very scary swordsman standing off to the side who was very irritated with this ordeal, an excited straw hat wearing young man who kept calling out to her saying how happy he was to see her, the two people who brought her there in the first place, two women discussing something unbeknownst to her, a _talking, walking_ skeleton with an afro and very weird clothing, a talking reindeer who acted like a doctor, and young blonde male asking if she was alright, if he could get her anything, and overall fawning over her like he knew who she was.

"Bull shit," spat Zoro with an obvious look of disbelief, "Does that look like the body of a fourteen year old to you?"

"But…" she trailed while taking a few seconds to actually look over her anatomy. Her body really didn't look like that of someone who was fourteen, but she couldn't be any other age… "But if I'm not fourteen then how old am I?"

"By the way your body is developed," chimed in Chopper who entered doctor mode and began to look her over, "I'd say eighteen."

"Ei… Eigh… teen…?" As she said the word, it was obvious that she had trouble taking that in since her face went straight to her hands.

This was just all to overwhelming… First, she woke up on an odd ship with a maniac, second she gets tossed around in a crowd and thrown into a park away from the one person who would be able to help her, next this clown freak threatens to shank her with a dagger, then after being saved she gets taken here, and she's getting hit with all of this news. It was just so much and it sounded so unreal, but she was brought out of her confused trance some…

Removing one of her hands from her face and taking it in his, Sanji brought her hand to him, bringing her along with slightly. His expression being one of utter sincerity and of course girl craziness, he was quick to reassure her.

"Do not fret, Madeline," he sung to her, "I'll be glad to explain everything to you~!"

"And probably scare the shit out of her as well…" the swordsman added expressing that he was quite annoyed with Sanji's "lovey-dovey"ness.

Standing quickly to his feet, the cook let out a rough breath through his nose. He clearly was not in the mood to put up with Zoro's crap especially at the fact that Madeline had returned and something was obviously wrong and the green haired man wasn't showing one smidge of concern for their friend.

Knowing exactly what was about to happen, Chopper clasped his hooves around Madeline's hand that Sanji had been holding a few seconds ago and easily moved her out of the battle zone.

"Shut the hell up, shitty Bushido!" Sanji barked while throwing a swift round house into the first mate's side.

Zoro caught the blow, there was no doubt about that since he saw it coming, though of course the kick was strong enough to cause his arms to ache slightly from the impact.

"Make me, Ero-Cook!" Zoro retorted while pushing the blonde away from him and then drawing two of his swords from their holders at his side.

Saying an affirmative reply, Sanji rushed at him in a quickly lit rage and leaped into the air. He was very ready to do yet another crater creating axe kick like he had when they had lost their memories, but the heel of his foot never reached Zoro's shoulder fully as Franky's fist hit the both of them just in the nick of time.

Sending them both to the lawn, Franky pulled his hand back and made the task that was the most important right now quite clear to the both of them.

"There's no time for you two to fight," he said with a stern tone in his voice, "You two need to go find Nira."

"What?!" exclaimed Zoro who jumped to the balls of his feet as he heard that him and Sanji had to go out into the town to look for Madeline's _counterpart_, "Why do I have to take Curly Brow with me?"

Franky sighed and set his large hand on Zoro's shoulder. He could have sworn that the reason was obvious, but then again it was Zoro…

"Because," he started while thumbing over to Sanji who was quick to recover from being punched by the cyborg and was back over at Madeline's side since he heard her asking Chopper about that whole fight scene, "It's to keep Sanji away from a 'fourteen year old' Madeline."

"So I have to take him with me to keep him from _molesting_ her?" he snorted, giving Franky a "In hell" kind of tone, but his face sunk when he saw Nami give him a certain look. A rough sigh escaped his chest. "Fine then… I'll do it so the witch doesn't raise my debt anymore than she already has."

--

Biting into my lip some, I did my best not to strangle the man in front of me…

"What do you mean there's not a Marine base on this island?!"

"Exactly what I said, ma'am," the man replied with his hands up in a defensive and submissive position.

I growled low in my throat and I nodded to him, grateful that he informed me, but pissed off at the fact that he didn't tell me what I wanted to hear and as I walked about ten feet away I sat on the bench that I started to pass and began to talk to myself.

"First I wake up in an unfamiliar place with a wimp for a Cabin Girl, then I lose said Cabin Girl and I can't even report this in because there isn't a fucking marine base on the God damn island!"

Shaking my head and pinching the bridge of my nose, I took in a deep breath and slowly let it out in an attempt to calm myself to where I could think of a plan…

--

"I'm telling you Sanji," Zoro kept on, trying to get his plan across to the blonde, "If we split up we'll have a better chance of finding her!"

"Yeah, and with your shitty directional instinct even if you did find her, we'd have to go find _you_!" Sanji said back.

"Say that again, I dare you!" Zoro hissed with a vein popping out on his forehead.

The cook leaned in towards him some and put stress on every word he spoke…

"We'd have to go find _YOU_!"

Eye twitching and hand wrapped around the handle of one of his swords, he started for his crew mate, but stopped as a familiar voice followed an "I'm so sorry miss!"

--

My lip twitched as I sat there, drenched in the water that someone had been carrying. Wonderful… Just wonderful. As if I wasn't at the end of my rope already and this had to happen.

"You have ten seconds to vacate the area before–"

"Nira!" came a deep voice that was one that I did not know.

"Nira~!" called out another voice, again, one that I did not know…

Looking in the direction that they had come from, I saw two young men approaching me. A swordsman with green hair and a well dressed blonde with a very funky eye brow. Though I did have to admit it fit him.

"Oh Nira," the blonde said again, clasping his hands together and bringing them up close to his face while swaying around from side to side happily with a shroud of affectionate feelings surrounding him, "I'm so glad that you're alright!"

My eye brow raised in suspicion of these two. Never had I met or even seen either of them in my life, but somehow they knew me. I would have thought maybe they were new recruits into my unit of the Marines except their clothing did not say "Marines" to me. Not to mention there were quite a few Wanted posters nailed to the building across the way and well, one of them was on one, but I wasn't going to let them know I knew. Not yet anyways.

"Who the fuck are you, what are you doing, how do you know me, and why are you talking to me?" I asked, getting the straight forward questions out of the way to see what kind of story they'd come up with.

"Who we are is of no importance," the swordsman began, "What we're doing is searching for you, how we know you is because we're hired mercenaries who were also sent to come find you along with take care of a job, and we're talking to you so we could inform you that you need to come with us." I went to ask who had sent them, but as it seemed, he knew that question was coming. "And you're commanding officer sent us."

"Really now…?" A hand slipped behind my back slowly and inconspicuously. "And who is my commanding officer?"

The green haired man's expression rose slightly, but was quick to return to being straight and serious.

"I don't pay attention to hires me. All I look at is the money."

"Mm-hm… That's what I thought…" My fingers slipped the small hilts of two of my twelve strategically placed throwing knives in between my fingers. "_Pirate._"

--

"Shit…" cursed Zoro as he dodged the blade aimed at him, bring out his swords ready to do almost anything he had to to get her to go with them. Even with missing four years of memories, she had caught onto his whole charade, but how were he and Sanji going to get her to come with them… "If you don't stop now, I'll be forced to make you!"

Giving a "Yeah right" type of sound from between her teeth, she threw three more of her blades at him, forcing him to move further away from her. She smirked in satisfaction, but was when Sanji's movements caught her eye, she spun around on the heel of her shoe and sent four knives his way. Seeing the attack coming, Black Leg Sanji went straight to the palms of his hands and spun himself around deflecting the sharp weapons easily.

"You remind me of a chef in the East Blue," Nira said as the blonde leapt back onto his feet and she started to look back to Zoro who was closing the distance that she had put in between them, "Used that same fighting style…" To keep him at bay she flung her last three knives at him and reached for more, but to her misfortune, she had none left to use.

"Sanji, get her!"

He rushed up behind the teal haired girl, taking both of her hands in his, transferring them to one of his hands, and held them against her back side while securely wrapping his free arm around her shoulders. He really didn't want to be forceful or anything of that nature to her since she was a lady and Madeline's best friend, but even he saw that there was no other way to get her to cooperate.

"I'm very sorry that I have to do this Nira…" he said in an apologetic and friendly tone.

Cursing under her breath she muttered that she wasn't that easy to capture. She brought her head back, smashing it as hard as she could against his with the intention to break his nose and his arms let her go immediately to cover up the injury she just caused.

A smirk crawled onto her face as she moved away from him, completely forgetting about Zoro and not sensing the approaching swordsman.

"Serves you right pir–"

The hilt of Zoro's sword plunged right into the back of her skull, cutting her off and making all of her senses be engulfed in darkness. As she fell forward limply, he sheathed both of his swords, caught her, and slung her rag doll like form over his shoulder. Finally they could get back to Sunny and try and fix this whole thing…

Once the two of them began to head back, Zoro looked to Sanji who was holding the base of his nose. Blood was slightly streaming down his upper lip as the cook looked to the side a bit, trying to forget the pain and not remind himself that he would probably have to go to Chopper.

"Are you going to be alright?" he asked, trying to make up for the fact that he had done something that Sanji doesn't usually put up with at all.

"Yeah… I'll be fine," Sanji replied while wiping off the blood from underneath his nose.

"Good, because I was going to be worried about dinner for a second there."

Sanji stopped all he was doing except walking and gave Zoro an odd expression, but of course there was an urge to punish him for striking Nira over the head like he did.

"You still should be," he said while picking up his pace and stepping confidently.

He could tell that Zoro was quite confused as to why and he just had to ask that question as well as think it. A small, devious smile showed up on the cook's features as he looked over his shoulder while giving Zoro a look that said "Don't mess with the one that feeds you".

"Who said _you_ were getting any?"


End file.
